'April 20' turns 30 years old!
It sounds like a song, many would say it's a letter, but in reality, it's a spring, a journey. A life. Only then can it be understood that that theme that began in D minor on a supposed April 20, 1990, still, today, not only has it not ended but its flow has increased, dragging sediments from all the places through which it has been passing.
The last one to have brought its waters is a collective project where firefighters, carriers, health workers, police, ertzainas, civil guards, ranchers, farmers and food workers have joined a long list of musicians – Izal, Ariel Rot, Rozalén, Sidonie, Amaral or Repeat offenders , among others – with a common goal: stand up to the coronavirus.
This is the story of a group, Short Celts , and of the multiple lives of a letter dated 30 years ago , who had his moment of indigestion for the band and who today returns full of life.
Celtas Cortos and the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, Valladolid (2015)
THE 30 LIVES OF APRIL 20
Jesús Cifuentes “Cifu” answers Traveler's call during recess. The quarantine has added a new task to the musician and most visible head of Celtas Cortos: that of full-time teacher of his children.
According to the artist, his agenda has been quite saturated in recent days. The imminent anniversary of the band's best-known song and the preparations for its reinvention due to the coronavirus, they are extending their working hours until well into the morning. The center of attention is her again, the one from so many other times: the song April 20 –If a kitten died every time someone asks about it, the kittens would already be extinct–.
This time, the reason is a new birthday. A somewhat strange birthday, on the other hand:** it marks the 30th anniversary of something that was born 29 years ago.** It was 1991 when Celtas Cortos published his third studio album, Tell me a story, where the now mythical April 20 was included.
From that moment on, that theme became an essential of the band that should be in all the concerts to avoid disappointment to attendees. And this had its consequences.
"During the 1990s, the song became an anthem," explains Cifuentes, "but there was a moment when it left me saturated and grated for being a must in all repertoires for many years".
Saragossa (September, 2014)
And continues: "Over time and with more awareness, you reconcile, because in the end you realize that the important thing is to live the emotion of the moment. When we sing this song and see that the whole world is connected, the magical moment of the concert, a shared feeling. Now I feel proud and excited every time we have to perform it live. That spring, despite the fact that it had its moment of crisis, like many relationships, right now it is at full throttle."
The spring makes the conversation flow and, when Cifuentes talks about relationships, a question becomes inevitable: Would there be room for an April 20 in a 2020 full of screens?
"The melancholic part would lead back to the envelope and the paper; I don't see it sent in a WhatsApp. This epistolary genre, with an envelope and a stamp with a tongue, is far from the way we communicate now, that if we don't carry a mobile, we are like disabled to meet the rest of the world, "he says.
"Today it would be different, although the essence would be the same because, in the end, the important thing is the contact and what we cannot have at the moment: kisses and hugs. There is no device or hologram that can replace that" , he finishes.
Do you remember that night in the Turmo cabin?
April 20 rises in the middle of the conversation as if it were a trip. But not one on vacation to the Costa Blanca, but a long one, an epic, Of those of vital exploration, those of Cyclopes and Laistrygonians, the ones that take you away for months and take you into the unknown, in the manner of Herman Melville, Ida Pfeiffer or Alexandra David-Néel.
The excitement of the beginning and the euphoria; the arrival of normality and, little by little, of tiredness, saturation. The desire to leave everything as the trip lengthens and seems to become something bigger than oneself. And, finally, reconciliation.
Joy.
Celtas Cortos and their April 20 reconciled in several phases , but one of its most obvious manifestations happened at the end of 2019, when –finally– the official video clip was released of the song. Although this did not have all the acceptance that was expected among the fans. The main complaint was that the characters in the story were children , something different from what many had –had– imagined.
This is how Cifuentes himself confesses: "yes, late-adolescent people, 18 years old or something like that, would have given more to the target." As the singer explains, The love story, although imaginary, was based on an experience lived in a real place: the already famous Turmo cabin.
This shelter for shepherds located in the Estós valley, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, It was the place where he spent the last night of a trip to the mountains with a group of friends. However, the video "doesn't distort reality either. Although the characters are more childish, the meta-message is there. It has its twist, because the other would be the obvious. It makes the imagination run wild."
Immersed in the trip, the conversation takes a turn and is infected by that flow of imagination. We continue with a set of assumptions: Was there ever thought of a possible song-answer by the girl?
"Versions have emerged in different media: in WhatsApp emoticons, possible responses from the girl... But come on, I never considered creating the return message, I was the sender, I can't reply to myself!" , replies the musician, between laughs.
Pulling that thread, another question automatically appears: And if someone else, another artist, composed it, who would it be? Cifuentes, somewhat uncomfortable, hesitates at the beginning, but, in the end, he starts: "The first thing that comes to mind is María Rozalén, because she is a good friend and someone I greatly admire."
Turmo Cabin, in the Estós Valley
With Rozalén by the hand, the conversation moves away from April 20 to approach the most recent topics of Celtas Cortos, such as that Adventure Time of 2014 where the artist from Albacete lent her voice to the group. “Today, that was tomorrow another day” says the first stanza of it, and it is precisely that today that makes Cifuentes reflect on the long shadow of the band's classic songs:
"This annoys me a bit, because during the 90s we did not stop giving birth to records and at that time the radio was an ally, not like now. The last records we have released have not had that media space and it makes me angry because all artists, apart from being slaves, on occasions, to their successes, we continue working and we want to broaden horizons".
But in the balance is health –or at least that is what the Actimel ads say–, and Celtas Cortos try to balance the new with the old, mix it like good alchemists so that all generations have their required dose. And, in this tug-of-war between past and present, is when we arrive at the triple 20 date.
'April 20' turns 30!
APRIL 20, 2020: THE FIGHT AGAINST CORONAVIRUS
In a new episode of the romance Celtas Cortos and his famous epistle; April 20, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its remittance date , blurs, shivers its bubble and disappears into thin air to be reborn in the form of a sound vaccine against the pandemic.
"We have set out to support the people who are in the front line of commitment: health workers, police, firefighters, carriers, food workers..." Cifu explains about the project.
Drawing on his long list of musical friends, the group has created a new version of the song, this time as a choir in an arduous process of elaboration in which each musician recorded the song separately, in their own home -as dictated by the rules of the State of Alarm-. The objective is transfer all revenues collected from views of the resulting video to Doctors Without Borders.
In it we can find Ariel Rot, Wizard of Oz, Izal, Rozalén, Amaral, Repeat offenders, Sidonie, SkaP, The Sticker, Carlos Tarque, Dante, Mayalde, El Naán… Rock, ska, punk, pop, indie, rap, folk united for the same purpose. And together with the musicians, that first line of commitment: **supermarket and hospital workers, police and civil guards, ranchers and farmers... **
As some troubadours from Pucela said: "in these uncertain days" living has become a true art. The coronavirus has impacted the waterline of our world and turned our lives into the worst dream.
Hidden in our warm trench –the best refuge against the pandemic–, we look forward to the arrival of the colorful days without having to resort to an emergency exit fleeing from the virus and the unpresentable people who have turned social networks into a place almost as harmful.
We will continue there, every evening at 8, shouting "no, they won't be able to stop us" disguised as claps, hoping that the next time we sing April 20, we can do it hand in hand , without fear of the touch, the laughter and the breaths of whoever is by our side.
For now, and until that day comes, We will continue to comfort each other with music, video calls and the memory of the laughs we used to have all together.
"When we sing this song and see that the whole world is connected, the magic moment of the concert occurs"