Tonight's Lullaby

[Xipe Totec]

Nana Mouskouri- Song of Liberty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-WB3fDBXd8

One of my favorite voices in the world; a joy to listen to....

When you sing I sing for your liberty
When you cry I also cry your sorrow
When you tremble I pray for your liberty
In joy or sorrow I love you

Remembering days of darkness and misery
My country forgot for a time who you were
When you sing I sing for your liberty
When you are absent I wait

You are religion or perhaps reality
An idea that changes all of us
I believe you are the only truth
The nobility of our humanity

We must fight to save you
And await you without despair
When you sing I sing for your liberty
In joy or sorrow I love you

The song of hope
Is your name and your voice
And history carries us
To eternity

Liberty liberty

More information:

The first great opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The usual name Nabucco is short for the full name Nabucodonosor, Italian for the Assyrian* king Nebuchadnezzar. It tells the story of the captivity of the Jews, when Jerusalem was captured by forces led by Nebuchadnezzar's ambitious supposed daughter Abigaille.

Late in the 1800's, Austria occupied Northern Italy, Lombardy specifically. They apparently understood little as they were bemused by the pre-occupation Italians had with music, in particular Verdi's 'Va Pensiero'. They thought is was quaint and did not attach much importance to it at the time.

On the streets, the walls, they would find scrawled or painted the word VERDI. And so they thought everyone was in love with the composer. In fact, that word was a call to nationhood and spoke to Italian patriotism, but perhaps more to Lombardy re-unification. Because it was not just the song - it was because the name of Verdi was also an acronym for Vittorio Emmanuele Re d'Italia. (Vittorio Emmanuele, King of Italy).

Special thanks to Historian Marzio Apolloni for this intriguing information.
December, 2003