He is delighted to meet each other, and to sing, a profession in which he has been involved for more than half a century without showing any signs of fatigue. “There is no profession like this, where so many things happen in such a short time, where every day you are surrounded by people who not only love you, but show it to you,” explains Víctor Manuel during his visit to Barcelona, where He has come to promote the concert he will give next December 7 at the Liceu (9 p.m.) to continue with a job that creates addiction, "that's why sometimes there are people who you can't throw off the stage even with hot water."
Isn't there a time to retire?
You have to leave when people don't want to see you; When he stops buying tickets, you go home alone without anyone telling you. Meanwhile, if you can physically endure and have the public's favor, you have to continue.
Do you already have the next tour prepared?
A year ago we recorded a symphonic album with Joan Albert Amargós, we did three performances and as a result of that a series of symphonic concerts with different orchestras have emerged.
Are you impressed by playing with an orchestral choir?
It has nothing to do with anything, those concerts are recorded with 135 people between orchestra and choir. When a chorus of 65 people opens their mouths, you die, I sink into the corner.
The new generations of musicians seem to prefer to perform with the minimum.
I played this summer and the next day Quevedo played. What he brings? Nothing. What bothered me the most was reading a praise from a music critic saying that playing without musicians wasn't so bad. People demand very little, that you sing the song that they already know, or not even that you sing it to them, even if it is a complete playlist, nothing happens. The world of music has changed a lot for the worse.
In the 70s there were people who were listened to for the message, not for the music.
But there was support behind it, people demanded something. I know that Madonna has never sung on stage because it is impossible to dance and sing at the same time, she was allowed to. But can you imagine Bruce Springsteen without singing?
Are you as fit as him?
Physically I am very well, I defend myself very well the two and a half hours that I am on stage, and I feel that people love me more now than ten years ago. I don't know if it's because of its resistance, because in this case we have made a repertoire that is very grateful for the people. They know 90% of what I sing, and they like that a lot. As soon as it comes out I notice that I'm not going to release any song, which makes them already euphoric.
It's easier than when he presents new music...
I always explain to the audience that if I hadn't premiered everything I'm going to sing tonight, I wouldn't be a singer anymore. They understand it, but they are very grateful that I don't release any songs. I fought for many years with my first songs, I even stopped singing them, but I noticed that people got a little angry and I felt that anger the first time I saw Simon
His songs have transcended him as an author.
I like that people lose track of my songs, take ownership of them, as will happen one day with Asturias, which is now more of the people than mine. It is used daily for many things, to end a pilgrimage, a prau festival, to demonstrate, surely many young people who sing that song do not know who it is by. I like that they stay in the landscape, remain as just another spectator, I don't think that because you are an author you are better than anyone else on stage, there are sublime performers who don't need to write a single line to be great.
Your music has become popular, but you continue to spark controversy
I don't think everyone will ever like you, it's impossible. When I come down to it I remember one day when I ran into two ladies and one said: “Look, Víctor Manuel”, to which the other responded: “I don't buy it.” That puts you in your place, it's very good, and if you have political opinions many people can't stand you. But since this has been happening to me for so many years now, a more or less opinion about the amnesty doesn't matter to me at all. They beat me up for being the Communist Party, after that you cure everything.
Do artists have a special weight when talking about public things?
It's an opinion like any other, but sometimes you [journalists] insist a lot on asking artists what they think. For me, what Almodóvar says, or what I say, or Vargas Llosa, has the same value as anyone else. I am very shocked by former presidents who know how to do things now. I would like to see Felipe or Aznar managing the situation we now have in the country, because when they were in need they allied themselves with whoever they could. They are out of touch with reality, I understand that they may have an opinion but speaking that way from the outside, as if they had no government responsibilities and had screwed up, I don't understand it. With what authority do you speak to me? Why did you put me in the Iraq war if 90% of the country didn't want to? There are people who are influenced, for example when Aznar says that everyone should do what they can, he is encouraging people to put stones in their pockets.
Are you still composing?
I do it very intermittently, only when I really want to compose and need songs. The last time, for the album Almost Nothing Is in Its Place, I wrote a bunch and had about 14 songs left over. There is an embryo of something that I am going to start launching in January, there are 5 or 6 songs that are good for the next album that I want to compose now.
Where do you compose?
When I was young I wrote anywhere, the toilet bowl, but time passes and you become manic. Now I always work in the same place, with electric light, in a dark place without windows, there I start breaking stones. I am unable to maintain concentration if there is something that can distract me. If there is a window, light, and something there, a tree or whatever, I don't write anything.
Artists filter reality through their eyes
I have always seen a dark side of the life we have to live. The most screwed people, the dispossessed, have entered a lot into my songs, the marginal people who are there and don't know why. How do I write The Mother? I had to read a small note in the newspaper La Repubblica, in Bologna, from a mother who had bought a pure dose of heroin to give to her son and kill him because she could no longer bear her pain. When I read that news I started writing the song, it seemed so powerful to me. Alone, it had never occurred to me to imagine that; My head doesn't give me that.
Has social music been lost?
There are many people writing powerful songs and talking about what is happening around them, but these are much more screwed up times, people are very limited by social networks, by going outside the established lines, from the established lines. When we wrote songs you found a complicity on the other side that they will never find now. In those years Radio Nacional was a nursery for reds, you knew that they would program any song of yours, even if they didn't like it, because they were messing with things and that is impossible now. I miss the dissemination of people with a writing outside the established, like Rozalén herself, who when she talks about her executed republican uncle you notice that people twist their faces and it is no longer The Violet Door or Sunflowers, which are more kind.
