The lost papers of Antonio Vega

“I was born on December 16, 1957 in particular, in a great hurry, since only seven and a half months of maternal pregnancy had elapsed.

Two brothers were waiting for me at the dawn of the use of reason and three sisters to arrive would complete the race of the Vega…”.

Word of Antonio Vega.

Twenty years ago, the musician, singer and composer from Madrid, founder of Nacha Pop, wrote this text —the beginning of his biography— on a page torn from a notebook that survived the fire.

Today, for the first time, that page sees the light among many other belongings that survived the fire in his house in the Madrid neighborhood of Ríos Rosas.

Those who knew well the author of

who died on May 12, 2009 of lung cancer,

They know that in his life there were several changes of address, in the course of which he got rid of many personal effects.

"He didn't move.

He left and began life in another place without clinging to material things, ”says his brother Carlos of him after emotionally receiving the bulk of documents.

That fire destroyed a large number of the musician's objects and writings, but not all of them.

Many of them were left almost intact.

A person who does not want prominence or rewards and who therefore prefers to maintain his anonymity rescued those

belongings from the fire in case Antonio Vega claimed them one day.

Something that did not happen.

Having no news, that person decided to keep everything because he understood that it had great value.

He hoped he could deliver that legacy.

Years later he tried, without success, through some people who said they knew the musician's family.

But after seeing the material, they never contacted her again.

Not knowing quite what to do, she put everything away and forgot about it.

Stacked in the back of a closet in an attic of his home, those lost papers have been hidden for more than two decades.

During the pandemic, thanks to a cleaning, she saw them again.

She placed them on a table to dust and sort them, and the idea of ​​giving them to the relatives of her former owner came back to her.

A few months ago she decided to contact this newspaper in an attempt for the singer's loved ones to finally get them back, 13 years after his death.

Basilio Martí, one of Antonio Vega's regular musicians and a friend of his, remembers that he himself told him that he once lost several of his possessions in a fire.

He “he didn't keep anything, he changed houses every so often when he filled it with things and started a life from scratch.

He took a guitar and left almost everything there.

He didn't move

The more than 600 photos include testimonials from trips to Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom with the members of Nacha Pop, as well as from his childhood, his brothers and well-known friends such as Emilio Aragón, Antonio Flores or Pastora Vega.

Also from his stay in the military.

In addition, there are four notebooks with handwritten songs and with her signature;

some unpublished texts, such as the paragraph with which this report began, and other writings of a personal nature, poems and paragraphs of songs that he integrated into others or that he did not use, concert tickets... and different notes on astronomy, one of his authentic passions.

There are love letters to his former partner, Marga del Río;

clippings with his press appearances over the years, dedications from fans and even a CD with a copy of personal work prior to the

(recording prior to the release of an album in which the latest arrangements are introduced, if deemed necessary) of his album

.

Everything is back in the hands of his family after years of neglect.

In one of the albums, the components of Nacha Pop can be seen in Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

In the image, Antonio Vega about to get on a plane.

Antonio Vega, in the foreground, with his cousin Nacho García Vega.

Just behind them, producer Carlos Narea reading the newspaper EL PAÍS.

Nacho García Vega, on the left, and Antonio Vega in a recording studio.

The two members of Nacha Pop rehearse one of their songs in a studio.

Antonio Vega rehearsing alone.

The singer rests with his legs up during a day of recording.

Antonio Vega poses with his suitcases next to a red car with plates from Gladbach, Germany.

Carlos Brooking, on the left, with producer Carlos Narea.

One of Nacha Pop's appearances on television.

The members of Nacha Pop, in a bar.

Antonio Vega, in front.

To his left, Nacho García Vega.

To his left, Carlos Brooking.

And from behind, Ñete.

The components of Nacha Pop, on stage.

Antonio Vega, with sunglasses.

To his left, Nacho García Vega.

To his right, Ñete.

And from behind, Carlos Brooking.

Antonio Vega and Nacho García Vega, in a concert hall.

The exact date of the fire from which all these belongings were rescued is very difficult to date.

After studying the documents, it is most likely that it took place during the period in which Antonio Vega was composing the lyrics for his third solo album, the aforementioned

which was published in 1998 and was recorded in Mallorca for several months.

In one of the texts, also unpublished, the singer notes in a diary the place and year in which the recording of the album was completed: “Palma de Mallorca.

August.

97. Like everything that is dated, it was seen coming, and from one moment to another I found myself on the island.

With one foot in Mallorca and the other in Madrid… ”, he wrote.

Anatomy of a song

Throughout the rescued pages, in which the artist collects and orders his letters again and again, part of his personal creative process can be observed.

He also brings out his fondness since he was a child to classify objects.

Hence, he cleans up the songs in notebooks with different colored markers and tries to create a record of all his work.

Basilio Martí describes the way of working with the artist as controlled chaos: “Antonio's music was wonderful for any musician.

He would give you three notes and you would go crazy to work on them.

Then he would disappear and come back.

'No, I would like this more here'…, and he would leave again.

He gave us total freedom, but he always ended up controlling his music 100% and he was leading us.

In fact, in his letters he did not miss even an n ”.

The song that appears most throughout the texts is 'My home anywhere'.

Vega changes the letter little by little until he finds the definitive one.

In the first versions you can see how the artist includes in the second line a phrase that is not in the one published on the album Anatomía de una ola: “In my reconquered country” evolves through the pages until it becomes “Alcé I looked up and said sure!

Another example is "Tripping over a handkerchief" becomes "Tripping over ideas" in this line.

The two phrases are included in the final version, but in a different order.

This page contains verses that later disappear, such as “I dreamed that you were by my side” or “I went around the world for you”.

Some paragraphs also appear out of order until you find a more harmonious order.

In others, Vega crosses out the ideas that do not convince him.

The singer introduces the idea of ​​the verse that will begin with “Old Einstein already knew…”.

Basilio Martí, a friend of the singer, affirms that Antonio Vega even captured the phases of an artist's creative process in some of his songs.

“He slipped into several of his compositions phrases of his in which he talked about how he composed or the lack of inspiration.

One day you have a phrase, but you can't think of what to record, or what to sing.

It is the daily reality of many artists.

'Full of paper' or 'A tenth of a second' contain these allusions, for example”.

In the image, My home anywhere.

Completed and signed by him.

Martí details what the composer was like inside the studio: “When you saw the album in the street you said: 'The storm has passed, we are all alive'.

They were months of bestial suffering.

Even on Antonio's part, he was squeezing his head to get the best out of it.

The guy had a reputation for being a mess and he was, but in that sense he was exquisite.

He was looking for the exact word, the exact arpeggio… He knew what he wanted.

He took the reins and if he didn't say anything it was him because he liked what was there.

If he didn't like it, he changed the whole outfit.

I remember one day when they were pressing us for the delivery time and Antonio finished a song with a piece of paper and a pen sitting on an amplifier because those from the production company were already coming”.

Most of the compositions that appear in the texts are part of

, although he kept many other works from his first and second album, as well as those from his beginnings with Nacha Pop. Some examples:

,

,

,

,

,

… They all appear handwritten, and many of them with the date and their signature.

Producer Carlos Narea recalls, like Basilio Martí, the musician's creative process, which he lived very closely during the years in which he produced Nacha Pop's last two albums and Vega's first solo album.

“From time to time,” he recalls, “he would show up with a finished, round song.

He spent, for example, on the album

There were issues not only resolved in terms of music and lyrics, but also included arrangement ideas.

With a

Antonio was listening to the songs, some of them were round, like

, but he also added arrangement ideas, composed the solos... I experienced both situations with him: having a whole song already in his head, and having to hurry him up and tell him: 'Antonio, we have to finish this', and then he was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.'

It happens to almost all artists, they need pressure not to drag it out.

And sometimes it works out for them and other times it's hard for them, ”he explains.

One of the most striking findings in this

of the soul of Nacha Pop —together with her cousin Nacho García Vega— is the lyrics of a song that Antonio Vega dates back to 1978 and that he modified years later.

In it these verses are read: “Woman made of cotton / Woman of laughter and tears / Woman made of oblivion / Woman”: this is how the chorus goes.

In 2001 she includes these slightly modified verses in

: "Woman made of cotton, of silk, of pure iron."

Detail of the chorus of one of the unreleased songs, dated 1978, which was later included in 'Seda y Hierro' (2001).

The rest of the stanzas do not appear in any other of his works throughout his career.

The same thing happens with

, reflected in these papers and cataloged as “unpublished” in the archives of the National Library and also in the book

, published by the Demipage publishing house and which includes all the artist's compositions.

From this last letter, for the moment, it is unknown if the singer-songwriter composed the melody, but from the texts it is extracted that he wrote several versions.

Martí finds an easy explanation to understand this resource used by the singer: “All authors have a mixed bag where they keep what they don't use.

I'm also a composer and I keep a lot of musical phrases on my computer.

Suddenly, one day the opportunity arises and you say: 'Come on, the chorus could be this'.

And he had many resources.

Maybe he didn't even write those phrases, his memory was photographic and he surely remembered the ones he hadn't used even without writing them down.

The guy was brutal in that."

One of the people who knew Antonio Vega best and who were always closest to him —also in the most complicated moments— was his brother Carlos.

“Everyone knows about his messy life and his time with drugs.

Now, although he can't ignore that part, taking them didn't help him compose.

When he was bad, he was bad.

They are uncreative.

During all these years, there have been a large number of people who have always been seduced by Antonio's curse.

There are people who stay with that and not with what it was.

He was who he was because of his songs and not because of his addictions.

The greatest of him is not there, it is in his work”, he points out.

Carlos —an architect by profession, but a composer of innumerable songs— is very grateful to have recovered these memories and lyrics by the artist who, with his authorization,

the last mountain

For fans of the singer, it is not new that he felt a passion for the world of astronomy, which even served to inspire him when composing some songs.

This science interested him not only in a poetic way, but also on a physical and mathematical level.

Among the documents there are also notes, notes, mathematical formulas and photographic cutouts of planets that attest to his interest.

Antonio selects photographs of Mars, Venus and Jupiter, and writes their characteristics next to them in the form of a

to keep them in order.

In the documentary

which was published in 2014 by Paloma Concejero and which narrates the life of the artist, Mari Luz, his mother, confessed that on one occasion they took Antonio to a psychologist to find out if his restless character It was normal.

She told them that her son had over 130 IQ points.

Other sources have come to point to a coefficient of 168. The same as that of Einstein, a scientist whom the musician mentioned in his lyrics and whom he admired.

Another of his great passions, not well known by the general public, was climbing.

Antonio Vega frequently went during his youth to different places to develop his hobby.

One of his favorites and the ones he visited the most was La Pedriza, in Madrid.

That is why lyrics such as the one for

collect ideas associated with this sport, and that among the found images you can see him enjoying nature.

A stage that went into the background when he and Nacho García Vega founded Nacha Pop and devoted themselves entirely to music.

Love letters to Marga

Antonio Vega also left two letters to Marga del Río after the fire.

She was his second great love, as the interpreter of

and

, he acknowledged in public many times, after having lived an 18-year relationship with his wife, Teresa Lloret, from whom he separated, but from who never got divorced.

Teresa and he maintained a good relationship despite her breakup and the singer always remembered her in her appearances with affection and admiration for her.

“I opened my eyes, startled, I sat up.

Still trembling I felt my heart beat fast, I looked around me and everything was calm.

'The nightmare again,' I thought.

The bad dream of losing you;

Without reconciling sleep, I closed my eyes and reproduced your figure in my mind.

There you were, with luminous hair, your affectionate smile, your naive immaturity, your mature youth…”.

It is a small sample of the words that the composer dedicated to his partner at that time.

In 2004, she died after suffering from bacterial encephalitis, a fact that left the author totally devastated.

First letter

If you ever miss me and your heart is abandoned, selfless to the nostalgia that does not drag with it the sadness or the false certainty of being alone.

That your memory does not illustrate the pain and the charcoal of your imagination does not hide my portrait in shadows.

On the contrary, draw with it what you gave me, the smile that got out of hand and now accompanies me like a humble lantern that, oblivious to the rapture unleashed by my irrational form, maintains itself by lighting up my little fortune.

The greatest of fortunes.

To have you in my heart.

Loving you with the animal force that sometimes goes haywire...

The joy of my dawn full of you.

The grace of having the reason to give my life.

I carry you inside and outside you are the clothes that keep me warm in my best dream when I sleep, the precious reality of my vigil.

I love you.

Anthony

second card

I opened my eyes, startled, I sat up.

Still trembling I felt my heart beat fast, I looked around me and everything was calm.

“The nightmare again”, I thought.

The bad dream of losing you;

without reconciling sleep I closed my eyes and reproduced your figure in my mind.

There you were, with luminous hair, your affectionate smile, your naive immaturity, your mature youth.

I spoke your name when a tear slid down my cheek.

Then another one and putting my arms forward I wanted to hug you, but you weren't there.

"Margarita, don't go," I said out loud.

No one answered, not a sound.

"Please, I need you and I love you."

I cried and so I fell asleep.

When I woke up, already during the day I felt a dark emptiness, I felt dizzy and more than ever I said: “for everything and forever, my love”.

Anthony

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