Chapter 1. A Song, Socialism, and the 1973 Military Coup in Chile
Scroll down for audio, video, images and information to supplement your reading of Chapter 1 of We Shall Not Be Moved/No nos moverán: Biography of a Song of Struggle.
Dr. Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile in September 1970 as the candidate of a coalition of left-wing parties known as the Unidad Popular [Popular Unity]. His government was overthrown by a military coup on September 11, 1973. Allende died that day defending the presidential palace, known as the Moneda, from being overrun by his own country’s soldiers. Click the image to listen to a recording of President Allende’s last speech to the nation.
La Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace, was bombed by the country’s own air force. The death of Allende and the overthrow of the Unidad Popular government was followed by a bloody military dictatorship that would last for the next seventeen years.
The group Aparcoa sings Marcelo Coulon's musicalization of Allende's last speech.
"The transmission plants of all the government radio stations had already been bombarded, silencing their voices in a criminal operation without precedent in the history of the American continent. Only Radio Magallanes remains on the air. I hear Guillermo Ravest [director of the station] calling on the people to defend themselves. The song “No nos moverán” is heard. It is suddenly interrupted. . . . The Hawker-Hunters [British jet bombers] begin to whistle across the skies of Santiago." -René Largo Farías, Oficina de Informaciones y Radiodifusión, and founder of the peña Chile Ríe y Canta
Guillermo Ravest overseeing two of his announcers on Radio Magallanes.
"Of course our programming featured almost all the songs of struggle, protest, politics, and bearing witness, including “No nos moverán.” It was played more and more often with the growinging intensity of the undercover actions of the United States and the counterrevolution fomented by the Chilean right: fascism and fascists (Patria y Libertad) [Fatherland and Liberty] and by domestic and foreign business groups. Logically, once the military coup was underway, the song “No nos moverán” was broadcast on that September 11, 1973, multiple times. In this way, directly and indirectly, we defiantly responded with the song to the coup and the military communiqué that ordered all the pro-Allende radio stations to cease broadcasting. If we didn’t, we would be attacked by both ground and air forces. We were the station that most resisted the leaders of the coup by broadcasting the last speech of the constitutional president, Salvador Allende." -Guillermo Ravest
Tiemponuevo's recording of "No nos moverán"
Cover of the long-play album Conjunto de música popular Tiemponuevo de Valparaíso, released in 1970 on the DICAP record label operated by the Juventudes Comunistas de Chile [Communist Youth of Chile], featuring the song “No nos moverán.”
Members of Tiemponuevo in a recording studio in Chile in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
Members of Tiemponuevo performing in Berlin.
Click on the image to visit the band's website.
Click on the image to read the entry for Tiemponuevo in the on-line encyclopedia Música popular chilena.
Eulogio Dávalos plays the guitar and discusses his experiences with the Tren Popular de la Cultura in a videotaped interview at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile.
Click on the image to see a short documentary about the Tren Popular de la Cultura.
Click on the image to listen to an improvised performance of "I Shall Not Be Moved" recorded by the Million Dollar Quartet (Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley) in the studios of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, 1956.
Click the image to visit the website for the Broadway musical, The Million Dollar Quartet.