Ángel Corpa: "To say that there is the same censorship as with Franco is stupid"

Ángel Corpa, founder of the Jarcha group, with whom he sang some of the Transition anthems, such as

has decided, at the age of 70, to make the leap into politics to run for the regional elections on May 28 by one of the candidacies of the platform of Empty Spain, Cuenca now.

After four decades working and living in Andalusia, in 2009 he decided to return to his town, Barajas de Melo, to accompany his mother in the last years of his life.

The town in Cuenca had almost 2,500 inhabitants in the fifties and today there are less than a thousand.

Ask.

Politics is going through a reputational crisis: those who should provide solutions are periodically listed in the CIS as one of the country's main problems.

Have you thought it through?

Answer.

Common sense has been lost and the search for the common good has taken a backseat because on many occasions politicians are looking for continuity much more than solving real problems.

The language they use, the attitudes... do not help to generate a calm environment to face problems side by side.

If each one pulls on one side, we break it.

Q.

And how did they convince you?

Was it hard for him to say yes?

R.

Here they wanted to install a large pig farm and we created a neighborhood association, we put money to hire a lawyer and we tried to paralyze it.

We understood that people would leave, lands and houses would be devalued, and the emptied Spain would continue to be emptied.

That's where politics started.

In a plenary session of the City Council we realized that nobody defended our position and we considered making an alternative candidacy, a group of voters.

For that we needed 15 people from the town to show their faces, but we only found eight.

Nobody wanted to signify themselves and that gave me the willies.

Then Cuenca Ahora appeared in our lives, giving us the umbrella we needed.

A few months ago we met in Tarancón, they explained to me that they were a transversal party, without ideology, beyond defending what is ours,

nurture emptied Spain, that there be the same opportunities, since we pay the same taxes as everyone.

They told me that my profile could bring people together, I thought about it for a few months and in the end, encouraged by my son, I said yes.

My work had something to do with service, I have had that privilege.

Music is trying to make people happy.

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Q.

Already have Twitter?

R.

I do not have nor do I plan to have.

I know that politicians have a series of routines, but I don't want to get into them.

The life is other thing.

Q.

He left Jarcha in 1997, after 25 years, because, as he explained in an interview in EL PAÍS, "over time he moved away from his initial postulates."

Are musical groups or political parties more cainitas?

R.

The groups are not a pool of oil, but I think there is much more cainism in the political parties.

Jarcha's last year was very ugly in terms of relationships, egos, everything was questioned... If we start discussing everything, which is what happens to politicians, we don't advance.

Q.

You already have that military service done.

R.

I don't like wasting time.

I experienced the Transition firsthand, which seems to me to be a success, because the best minds in this country pulled the car and turned it around: from dictatorship we went to a democracy with a socialist government.

Then there was an exodus: the lawyer returned to his firm, the engineer, to his study... and many people stayed in politics who had nowhere to go.

That has been increasing over time.

There are many people in Parliament who have grown up in politics and entertainment is supplanting culture.

Q.

Did you continue the motion of no confidence?

Were you surprised that Ramón Tamames, one of the characters in the Transition, signed for Vox?

R.

It seemed like a circus to me.

That Tamames, with the prestige he had, coming from where he came from, would throw everything to the ground and whitewash a party like Vox seems tremendously pathetic to me.

I also believe that Parliament is not for that.

Q.

Before the concerts they had to deliver their lyrics to the censorship.

Recently, some statements by Mario Vaquerizo comparing the current situation with Francoism have been very controversial.

He said: "I feel identified with my grandparents, you can't say what you think."

Do you share it?

A.

I don't know who Mario Vaquerizo is.

Q.

A singer, husband from Alaska...

R.

They have prohibited us from singing, they have prohibited us from acting, they have given us fines… I don't think that today you run those risks in Spain for saying what you think.

I don't know why they say that, they will know.

They seem stupid to me.

Ángel Corpa, in the study of his house in Barajas de Melo (Cuenca).

Luis Sevillano

Q.

_

At first, the Regime censored

, although they later rectified it.

R.

Yes, when the song came out it was banned, I suppose due to a certain inertia, because the word freedom came out, which surely sounded bad to them.

The song was the backbone of the launch campaign for

, which I imagine would move their contacts, and two weeks later TVE called us to go and sing it on the news, in front of the Labor Minister, Fernando Suárez, as if attesting that it had been a bureaucratic mistake.

That song had the right message at the right time, that's why it was so successful, which is something you see

It served to express everything that was in the heads of the vast majority of the Spanish people.

And it was very exciting when, 21 years later, people spontaneously began to sing it at demonstrations for Miguel Ángel Blanco.

Of everything I've done in 50 years, more than 4,500 concerts, helping a song occupy the position that

did is the most extraordinary thing.

That is why it bothers me a lot that now, for example, they put it in Vox acts.

They have no shame.

They colonize everything they catch.

Q.

What did you feel when they banned a song?

A.

It was very frustrating.

We had to take the letters to the General Directorate of Information and Tourism.

The censor was crossing out verses, and from a song of 40 he could remove 10. Later, we decided to sing it the same and assume the consequences or remove it entirely and do another.

Once they forbade us to sing

at a concert in Puertollano and what we did was print the lyrics, distribute them among the public and have them sing them while we played.

It was very nice.

P.

He left Jarcha, but continued in music.

Was it difficult to stay?

R.

At many times I have thought: why did I get here?

There have been downturns, moments of lack, having a very bad time financially, but in the end they have been great lessons because when you overcome them you find more meaning in what you do.

I've been doing this for 50 years and I'm still surprised, I'm going to die learning.

Ángel Corpa, last Friday on the Donace route, in Barajas de Melo (Cuenca).

Luis Sevillano

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