Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'protest song'.
-
I was born in Lisbon the year before the Revolution and grew up listening to protest music, some of it recorded in Paris by exiled artist who were wanted by the fascist regime, its lyrics ripe with double entendre... 5 minutes before 11pm on the 24th of April 1974, at the studios of Radio Alfabeta of the Associated Broadcasters of Lisbon, the service announcer João Paulo Dinis played the song "E depois do adeus" (And after the goodbye) by Paulo de Carvalho. It was the signal for the troops to advance. The "password", composed by the song "Grândola, Vila Morena", by José Afonso, was recorded by Leite de Vasconcelos and aired by Manuel Tomás, as part of Radio Renascença's Limite program, at twenty past midnight, preceded by the reading of the first stanza: “Grândola, vila morena Terra da fraternidade, O povo é quem mais ordena Dentro de ti, ó cidade” This second "password" from Radio Renascença, the national broadcasting corporation, served to inform all the barracks and military personnel joining the coup that everything was ready and going as planned. The synchronized and irreversible Movement of the Armed Forces had been triggered. Four hours later the radio was already the echo of freedom and the omen that all would be well. Radio Clube Português is occupied by the military and transformed into the command post of the Movement of the Armed Forces; the station became known as the "Freedom Station".