Inti Illimani - ‘¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!’

In late night Brixton, a few years ago, I witnessed a group of overexcited Chilean teenagers spontaneously roar through the chorus of this song: “the people united will never be defeated!” That kind of joy has been hard-won for the people of Chile, whose emotional wounds are still raw from the violence inflicted on them by the Pinochet regime, which ended very much within living memory. Written a few months before the military coup that brought Pinochet to power, Sergio Ortega’s 1973 song became (and remains) a symbol of resistance, a vibrant piece of folklore. It’s irresistible, with its melody surging towards the call to action: “¡adelante!”
Leo Chadburn