Joan Manuel Serrat has been one of the most important singers and songwriters in the Spanish and Catalan languages for the past 50 years.

His work has been influenced by the great Spanish poets of the 1930s, Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machado and Miguel Hernández, whose tragic fates were decided by the Spanish Civil War.

One of Serrat’s songs, ‘Uno de aquellos’ (One of Those) is directly inspired by Hernández’s tribute to the International Brigades, ‘Al soldado internacional caído en España’ (To the International Soldier Fallen in Spain).

Our friends in Madrid at the AABI (Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales) have now created a collage of images to accompany Serrat’s singing ‘Uno de aquellos'.

Born in 1943 in Poble Sec in the Sants-Montjuïc district of Barcelona, Serrat achieved his first number-one hit in 1967. He gave his voice to the anti-Franco struggle in Spain and was not afraid to compose songs in Catalan, which was then discouraged by the authorities. He spent a year in exile in Mexico after condemning the Franco regime.

Miguel Hernández (1910-1942) was a poet and a Spanish Republican soldier, serving in the Fifth Regiment at the start of the civil war and with the 11th Division during the Battle of Teruel. He died in one of Franco’s prisons.

Courtesy of Nancy Phillips, here is a rough translation of the words of Joan Manuel Serrat’s song:

One of Those

If there are men whose souls know no borders
A forehead covered with hair
And with horizons, ships and mountain ranges
With sand and with snow, you are one of those.

One of those
One of those
If there are men whose souls know no borders
You are one of those
You are one of those
All the homelands called you with their banners.

All the homelands called you with their banners,
May you breathe the beauty of life.
You wanted to end the hunger of panthers,
And you fought against their savagery.

One of those
One of those
If there are men whose souls know no borders
You are one of those
You are one of those
All the homelands called you with their banners.

Fed by all suns and waters,
You are the majestic tree that covers a continent.
Through your bones the olive groves
Embrace all men, faithfully.

One of those
One of those
If there are men whose souls know no borders
You are one of those
You are one of those
All the homelands called you with all their banners.