Contrasting with the backwards and authoritarian government of General Juan Carlos Onganía, Argentina and specially Buenos Aires were undergoing a cultural blossoming, based on new art expressions; the new generation, the sons of the middle class, was immersed in an effervescence that would not reappear in Argentina until 1983. Spinetta was part and later an exponent of that blossoming and rebellious youth that would express itself both through the arms and the arts. Spinetta devoted fully to the latter path, although he briefly became involved with left-wing political movements.
It was 1969 and his band, Almendra, recorded their first album. The band started recording and playing intensely and it became successful almost overnight. Almendra composed its own songs and the lyrics were in Spanish (something radically new). The subtlety and beauty of their sound would be one of the milestones (maybe the first) of Argentine rock. After two albums that enjoyed radio diffusion and deserved fame, the band split. Spinetta composed and recorded a new solo album, but an inadequate environment (he would later say that the mood of Argentine rock and rockers of those times were too "heavy" and negative for him) and the vast changes that success effected on his life made him leave the country.
After a lengthy stay in Europe, he returned to Argentina and formed a new band: Pescado Rabioso. It was destined to be as mythical as Almendra. With a far more powerful sound and expressing the tension in the streets of an increasingly violent Argentina, Pescado recorded its first album in 1972. It was both a continuation of the creative stream of Spinetta and a drastic change in the style of his music and lyrics. The band recorded a second album; although a third one carried its name, Pescado was by then dissolved; Artaud, recorded in 1973 and mostly a solo album by Spinetta, was a major breakthrough. Partly based on the writings of Antonin Artaud, Spinetta exorcised many of the demons of his past in this album. This process would open the door to a new era in his music.
In 1974 he formed a new band, Invisible. With his new band he recorded three albums; Invisible I, Durazno Sangrando (together with Artaud, hailed as his best album ever), and El Jardín De Los Presentes. With Invisible, he left the powerful and rough sound of Pescado; the new tunes were more harmonic, soft and mellow, yet his work remained essential and revolutionary. Following this line, he embarked on a solo project, A 18' del Sol, after dissolving Invisible in 1976-77. By then, ten years later after starting his career, his style had became a delicate amalgam of old and new; the old pop and (proto) heavy rock had merged with various elements of jazz and bossa nova. That unique flavour would become his style during the next half decade.
After recording and editing a failed album in the United States in 1979 (the only album that Spinetta lamented ever doing), with lyrics in English and destined to the US market, Spinetta returns to Argentina and starts a prolific era: he would record two albums with a short-lived Almendra Revival (one with original songs and the other live), and embark on a new project: Spinetta Jade.
Spinetta Jade would prove to be a successful and innovative band; Spinetta was joined by some of the greatest Argentinan musicians of those and all times to help him build the new sound he was building since Invisible. The product: a blend of jazz and rock that was unseen in Argentina and that escaped the boom of symphonic rock that reached both the world and Argentina in the early 1980s. These four albums, Alma de Diamante (1980), Los Niños que Escriben en el Cielo (1981), Bajo Belgrano (a homage to the neighbourhood where he grew up, 1983) and the unforgettable Madre en Años Luz (1984), represent a defined style as well as the footprints of Spinetta´s evolution. Towards the last two albums, the sound became a little bit more "pop", and embedded with electronic elements (samplers and synthesisers with "artificial" textures). Something worth remarking: the overpowering influence and fame of Spinetta in the Argentinian rock world was only equalled by that of Charly García. Many fans and critics shared the feeling that the two musicians represented antagonistic styles and values. To show otherwise, Spinetta and Charly (with their respective bands at the moment, Jade and Serú Giran) joined efforts and gave what was probably the most important show in the history of Argentine Rock.
Dissolving Spinetta Jade in 1984, Spinetta shortly engaged in an album to be made together with Charly; yet, this would-be mythical work was abandoned. Of this interrupted work, two songs remained: "Rezo por Vos" and "Total Interferencia".
By 1982, Spinetta had restarted his solo projects, and from then on would never leave them. Kamikaze (1982) puts together a number of previously unreleased songs (one gem is a very old song he composed in 1965 called "Barro Tal Vez"). In Mondo Di Cromo (1983) Spinetta prefigures the style of his solo projects during the second half of the 1980s. His new production, from 1986 to 1993, would include four solo albums (Privé (1986), Téster de Violencia (1988), Don Lucero (1989), Pelusón of Milk (1991)), a joint album with Fito Páez, another giant of Rock Nacional (Sólo la la la (1986)), and the soundtrack of the movie "Fuego Gris" (named after the film, 1993). It is hard to describe this collection of wide albums with a single adjective. The style, the sound, the themes that Spinetta picks and uses with the dexterity of a veteran musician are broad enough to encompass rock, pop, some tango, jazz and bossa; they all sound 1980s like; they all sound Argentinian and reflect the difficult years of the new democracy (1983 onwards) and the contemporary thought about Argentina that is being made. Hope and failure, they are covered with the Porteño melancholy maybe more than Spinetta´s previous work.
After a long silence, produced mainly by Spinetta´s conflicts with the recording companies, he finally opens a new period in his music with his new band: Spinetta y los Socios del Desierto. Three years (1997-1999) and four albums later, Spinetta had created yet another legend in Argentinian rock. Two studio albums, the double Socios del Desierto (1997) and Los Ojos (1999) would bring along a new sound, much more dry and 1990s sounding. The band made an MTV Unplugged, Estrelicia (1998), that because of its softness and acoustic nature, wildly contrasts with their live album, San Cristóforo (1998). As Spinetta said at the beginning of the first concert, "Fans de lo acústico, abstenerse" ("Fans of acoustic music, refrain"). The speed and roughness of the sound recalls Pescado´s sound. Also, in 1998, Spinetta chose the featured songs and artwork of a Greatest Hits album called Elija y Gane, edited the same year.
The band dissolved quietly towards the end of 1999. Spinetta started a solo era that spawns until the present. Silver Sorgo (2001), Obras en Vivo (2002), a live album, and Para Los Árboles (2003) combine maturity with boldness. The changing and mostly tragic landscape of current Argentina powerfully affects the background of these works. In them, Spinetta has showed that his creative flame is anywhere but near of being extinguished.
On 23 December 2011 he published on the Twitter account of his son Dante that he was facing lung cancer. He died on February 8, 2012 in his native Argentina, at the age of 62. His ashes were scattered in the waters of the Río de la Plata, according to his last wish, next to the Memory Park built to remember the desaparecidos of the National Reorganization Process.
La Eternidad Imaginaria
Luis Alberto Spinetta Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
desmoronandose aplastó la luz de las almas.
Entonces los ángeles huyeron
adoptando la forma de inútiles hojas del tiempo.
Pero alguno de ellos siempre
recuerda las formas del paraíso terreno.
Y algunos escalan por luchar
y una luz en la sangre de otro dios.
Este fue tu destino futuro
viajero incansable del tornado.
Y la luz de tu estrella inerte
resplandeciendo incandeserá sobre las tumbas.
Y vivos y muertos serán llevados
hasta las praderas mismas de las eternidad imaginaria.
Y la espada del señor nos conducirá
hacia el sol, hacia el centro de su luz.
The lyrics to La Eternidad Imaginaria by Luis Alberto Spinetta are infused with profound spiritual and mythical imagery that convey a sense of cosmic awe and existential longing. The opening lines evoke the downfall of a war god whose power ultimately led to the annihilation of the souls' light. This image symbolizes the fragility of human aspirations, which can easily be crushed by the forces of violence and hostility, both within and outside of us.
The subsequent lines depict the flight of angels who take the form of useless leaves of time, suggesting that even the divine entities are subject to the laws of impermanence and transience. However, the memory of the paradisiacal realm persists in some of them and inspires them to climb and fight, possibly for the sake of preserving the beauty and goodness that were once prevalent in the world. The mention of another god's blood and light further emphasizes the theme of celestial energies that can guide and inspire human endeavors.
The chorus summarizes the traveler's fate as an endless journey through a whirlwind, where the star's dead light shines over graves, and the living and the dead are united in the fields of imaginary eternity. The last line implies a sense of redemption and illumination, as the sword of the lord leads us toward the sun, the source of all enlightenment and knowledge.
Overall, the lyrics of La Eternidad Imaginaria convey a sense of spiritual yearning for a realm of enduring beauty and harmony, and the realization that this realm can only be reached through constant struggle and vigilance.
Line by Line Meaning
Asi fue que el dios de la guerra
This is how the god of war crumbled, thus crushing the light of souls.
desmoronandose aplastó la luz de las almas.
The god's collapse resulted in the destruction of the light of souls.
Entonces los ángeles huyeron
Then the angels fled.
adoptando la forma de inútiles hojas del tiempo.
They transformed into useless leaves of time.
Pero alguno de ellos siempre
However, some of them always
recuerda las formas del paraíso terreno.
remember the shapes of earthly paradise.
Y algunos escalan por luchar
And some climb to fight
y una luz en la sangre de otro dios.
and a light in the blood of another god.
Este fue tu destino futuro
This was your future destiny.
viajero incansable del tornado.
Tireless traveler of the tornado.
Y la luz de tu estrella inerte
And the light of your inert star
resplandeciendo incandeserá sobre las tumbas.
will shine incandescently over the graves.
Y vivos y muertos serán llevados
And the living and the dead will be taken
hasta las praderas mismas de las eternidad imaginaria.
to the meadows of imaginary eternity itself.
Y la espada del señor nos conducirá
And the Lord's sword will lead us
hacia el sol, hacia el centro de su luz.
towards the sun, towards the center of its light.
Contributed by Landon M. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Marcelo Carcamo
Luis Alberto Spinetta, es sin lugar a dudas una figura única en el desarrollo del rock latinoamericano, un genio de alto vuelo !!!
Luis Herrera
Mi mundo se divide en antes de Luis Alberto y después de Luis Alberto. Cómo me cambiaste la vida Luisito hermoso y cómo sigo aprendiendo de ti con el tiempo.
Linda
No solo la melodía hacen de esta canción algo tan mágico, la letra es tan conmovedora y tan sutil... creo que estoy ... tan enamorada del Flaco!
Circo Bohemio
No creas tanto, vivilo. Bendiciones.
Dario Marcos Segata
Creo que de alguna forma la aparición de este ser en nuestra vida,nos viró hacia ese camino de sensibilidad por toda nuestra existencia.Simplemente,poder dar Gracias por ello.
Sergio Campos
Facundo Cabral y Spinetta, son los artistas que proponen las reflexiones más profundas.
Es música íntima prácticamente
Matias Alejandro Cabrera
No puede terminar tremendo disco con tremenda obra de arte. Es muy fuerte. Es como que se termina todo, y vuelve a empezar.
Federico Monacci
Música tan dulce que es difícil no volar con ella, hacia el mundo abstracto del gran FLACO
Mauro
Flaco no paras de sorprenderme, eres un ser de luz, un balsamo para la humanidad. GRACIAS GRACIAS....
Flow Deivid
melodia de Dios...los angeles estan aciendo fiesta en el cielo....con tus melodias grande flako