A new tour across Europe and America reproposes the symbolic songs of the Ostrava song-writer
I wonder if he ever imagined – as a carpenter in the small Moravian villages – what he was to achieve later on in life? Who knows what was on his mind when he used to work at the municipal library in Ostrava indexing the history books. God knows if – as an “irregular” young rebel and keen drinker of good wine and beer – he ever listened to “Close the door, little brother” (“Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka”), the true anthem of the 1968 Spring revolution, sung by the immortal Karel Kryl? No, Jaromír Nohavica couldn’t have known then about his fate in the streets of Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Olomouc. He could not have imagined that one day he would actually become the symbol of another revolution, that of 1989, when the red flags and posters of the Communist Party were burnt down. But he did it softly, like velvet, in fact.
If the songs of the expatriate Karel Kryl were the slightly angry and surely sad icon of an oppressed Czechoslovakia during the last twenty years (1968 – 1988) of the regime, the songs of Nohavica rose to become the symbol of the “sametová revoluce”. Poem-songs gushed from the heart, songs without limits, both fresh and slightly melancholic – half Leonard Cohen and half Jacques Brel style, and why not, a touch of Fabrizio De André.
Success, we could say, came rather late to the moustachioed Jarek. In Husák’s Czechoslovakia there is no room for his creativity, nor for his somewhat uncomfortable humour and sharp irony, which does not clash openly with the regime, but destroys it with derision and a bitter laugh among friends.
Thus, between one song and another, Jarek makes a living by doing a few odd jobs in his beloved Ostrava, together with his wife and two children. He surely composes and writes, but nothing special. His music, with its rather intimate tone, remains confined within the underground music world, even if Nohavica is really good, he is skilled in using the pen and even more so with his guitar, he is a classic “musical poet”.
His debut is called “Cesty”, Roads, an album recorded almost clandestinely in 1985, but already gives us an indication of what his themes were going to be: love, friendship, pacifism, brotherhood, along with an underlying melancholy of living that accompanied him throughout his artistic career. Perhaps, the real turning point came unexpectedly in 1988: censorship had eased by then and also Prague was experiencing the odour of Gorbachev’s perestroika and his album “Darmoděj” (Aimless) gains a certain resonance and all the available copies are sold.
His original lyrics, with frequent references to folklore and literature, his music that combine Slavic traditions and French melodies, his soft and captivating tone of voice make him similar to a chansonnier. Not for nothing he translated and interpreted “The Deserter” in Czech, a song that is a symbol of pacifism, written by Boris Vian himself and made famous among others by Joan Baez.
But now everything is different: people listen to Nohavica in wine bars and pubs among college students who follow the revolution. A good moment for the Moravian singer: he even collaborates with Kryl, the expatriate and anarchic, though still maintaining more moderate political positions.
To Kryl, in fact, the “cursed” song-writer dedicates the song “Přítel”, Friend, and speaks about him in the album “Osmá barva duhy”, (The eighth colour of the rainbow), released during the magic year of 1989. It is the first really successful record, that further increased the popularity of Nohavica beyond national borders.
Not only politics: there is also a lot of feeling in his lyrics, there is the day-to-day Czechoslovakia, the lost loved ones and the “streets” of hope, in fact, that history seemed to have denied to the Czech people. If the three years between 1989 and 1992 seem as the most exciting ones for Eastern Europe that had regained its freedom, for Nohavica, paradoxically, they are also the most controversial. Surely, he has become quite famous and is no longer “the boy from Ostrava” who strummed the guitar in small clubs with 50 or so clients, he has become, in his own way, an icon and symbol of the historical moment that the country was going through.
He starts writing also for the theatre and translates Russian authors into Czech, as well as the Mozart booklets produced by Da Ponte. In short, he is a new wave intellectual, who rapidly changes the landscape of Central Europe.
However, together with his success there is also personal suffering: his struggle against alcoholism, family disagreements and loneliness. Themes that we may also find in “Mikymauzoleum” the album released in 1993.
The Country goes through deep changes with many exiles returning to Prague. By now, his concerts attract large crowds to the town squares and contemporaneously, during the surge of freedom and transparency, the archives of the old communist party and Stb police are opened to the public. It is, in fact, in the Stb archives that the name Nohavica crops up: from the records, it appears that Jarek had cooperated with the secret police. The singer does not deny the fact, but declares that he had never acted as an informer, or accused anyone. He remembers that being a police “informer” at the time was quite common among artists and intellectuals.
The charges against him tarnished a little bit his myth, but did not bring a stop to his activity: on the contrary, in 2002, he actually became the protagonist of “Rok ďábla”, The year of the devil, a documentary film on the fall of Communism in Prague, that caused great attention in the West. The singer is a controversial and disputable icon, but still remains an icon. Unlike Kryl – who had to emigrate to Germany because of his songs – Nohavica remained tied to his hometown and refused a number of offers to move to Prague, and found in the “fabulous dog’s life years” the repertoire for creating increasingly accurate and polished songs even from an acoustic point of view. After “My sad heart” (Moje smutné srdce ), two albums were released, inspired by the tales of the Grimm Brothers, but he also wrote other more committed compositions. Jaromír does not deny himself, he does not hide human weaknesses and frailties, which affected his whole life, but thanks to his innate humour and simple lyrical tone, he was able to make up for his mistakes and the drop in style. “Babylon”, “Ikarus” and “Tak mě tu máš” (the latter released in 2012), are the last albums created by the Ostrava singer, as well as his live records. Now he has fans all over Europe and America and they are not only Czech emigrants.
In 2011, he was awarded the Italian “Tenco Prize” in Sanremo, as best foreign artist. A prestigious and unexpected award to add to his “Anděl” prize, which he received in Prague of the same year. His songs and folk ballads may be heard almost everywhere: the flag of myth and irony make him an international personality. The slight drunkard, ex carpenter and weird librarian, has won his battle after all and has found his way. The Italian spring tour will stop in six cities for a total of eight performances.
by Ernesto Massimetti