Gracias a la vida (Thanks to Life) Cover
I played this song by Chilean singer and composer Violeta Parra at JGC OM 28. I first listened it in my teens from a cassette my late father bought in Chile during a work trip. The title of the album in the cassette could be translated in English as The Last Compositions of Violeta Parra. The album was recorded shortly before her death. On the album cover she’s holding a small guitar like instrument called charango. She sings and plays the charango for this song.
There are numerous covers of it. Joan Baez included it in an album she made of songs in Spanish in the 70s. The Joan Baez’ album has two titles, the one in Spanish is Gracias a la vida, that is the first track of the album, and the one in English is Here’s to Life. Some of the other songs included in Joan Baez album are a little heavy with political message of that time.
The transcription I played is from a songbook I have. The song doesn’t have a chorus and each of the six verses start with the same introductory phrase. The last verse has three additional bars. Violeta Parra ends the song singing the introductory phrase once more. The cover by Mercedes Sosa, that looks to be the one of the transcription I have, ends the song just by singing Gracias a la vida once more. I made three twists to the lyrics in Spanish to adapt it for a male singer.
The rhythm suggested in the songbook is called Argentine samba, that is a 6/8 rhythm. I had a hard time with this rhythm and instead of recording the video right after the OM, as I have been trying to do it recently, I waited till I felt a little more comfortable with it. In order to get more comfortable with it, I created a Guitar Pro practice file to play along the rhythm as per the songbook, my brother’s comments, and my personal feeling.
The A9 chord diagram shown in the Guitar Pro file above is the full A9 chord. The A9 chord I played is the one indicated in the songbook that doesn’t fret the sixth string and therefore I tried to avoid playing it.
If someone reading this is struggling with dark thoughts he or she can skip the next and last paragraph.
Unfortunately although Gracias a la vida can be felt as a hymn to the life and a reflecting realm of reinvigoration, for Violeta Parra herself may not have been like that and ended being more of a farewell. Some of the other songs of the album may hint about issues she was facing and led to ending a multifaceted artistic career in a tragic way.
Edit: YT link was updated because the video was reuploaded with a spelling typo in the titles fixed.