Gracias a la Vida

I had a poster of Violeta Parra for years before I finally heard this song. I just knew that she was the John Lomax of Chile, and that she was a great influence on Victor Jara, whose music I did know

I give thanks to life, she says. Que ha me dado tanto. That has given me so much

Yesterday it gave me a day of cold rain and pancake sized snowflakes. When they said sixty percent chance of rain, I didn’t realize that the other forty percent was going to be snow

Tonight the sky cleared by sunset and I was able to lie again beneath the first-quarter moon and the brave and stalwart stars

From the title, I had always thought of this song as life-affirming and hopeful. Then I heard the delicate and intriguing melody and I was sure of it. But as I learned more about her, I realized that even though it was written as a love song, as time went on, it became her goodbye to life

Violeta Parra recorded “Gracias a la Vida” one last time on February 4th, 1967. She took her own life the next day. She was 49