"This party is a party among friends. Thank you to those who have come from Barcelona and other places in the world, such as Sant Joan Despí, for sharing such a happy day, which has allowed me to spend another day among people I love and with whom I have shared life. After all, they give me a medal because I am old. That's how it is. Life happens. And I'm very happy to be here and to be able to climb the stairs. I don't really like the way I'm going, but how I know I can't change it, run and get all the good things out of it that you can."
Showing the Medal of Honor of the General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE), to which he began to contribute more than five decades ago, in 1968, with the song La mort de l'avi, Joan Manuel Serrat began yesterday like this in front of an auditorium attended by Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel, María Pagés, Estrella Morente, Montxo Armendáriz and Iñaki Gabilondo to accompany him. And he humorously thanked Eduardo Mendoza for his words: "Today is a very pleasant day, but also a day of reflection, so the laudatio of Mendoza was very good for me, with which I will not say that I do not agree , because I looked very good".
Incarnation, like Serrat, of that select group of creators in which high culture and popularity are one and the same thing, Mendoza began by saying jokingly, about when he was proposed to do the laudatio: "I immediately said that yes, very honored and happy, because I know him, admire him and we are friends, and because I was excited to give a laudatio, which I have never done before." "Later I regretted it, because a laudatio is a redundancy when they give an award. But it was a good opportunity to review the life and work of Serrat, with whom I have a few things in common: we were born in the same year, but we are not the same age, because I was born much earlier, and he, very towards the end. That's important, and the difference is obvious," he said with a laugh.
And he recalled that the author of Mediterráneo "had the childhood and adolescence of a smart boy", and "in times of restrictions, rationing, hunger, repression, rosary in the family and summary executions he was vaccinated for all life against any kind of hypocrisy and imposture. And all his life he has been an honest left-wing man, when being left-wing was a way of being in front of the world".
He recalled that he started singing in the new song, with a spirit of vindication and protest, but that he also moved among Barcelona's gauche divine, "a group that wanted to have a good time". "He participated in both groups because their songs were contagious. They were statements of principle. He was young, his songs sounded good, he had great musical sense, he wanted to live and he became a symbol of protest and also a sex symbol. How is this done? I wish I knew."
And he remarked that he was "a committed man, and when a person commits himself to the cause of freedom and against oppression, he chooses well, because he will never lack work. They put him in prison and he had to leave. When he returned, his popularity had multiplied by a hundred. During the transition, nothing like the song represented the excitement combined with the fear, the uncertainty, the desires and the contradictions of that fantastic era”.
Mendoza concluded with irony: “I didn't want to end the laudatio without something bad to say. I've been trying a lot for days and I've talked to many people about it, but I haven't found anything. Therefore, Joan Manuel, thank you and a hug".
