The show of Pavlos Cyma on “Heaven” did not end and the Internet exploded from his statement Dionysius Savvopoulos in favor of the independence of the “new democracy”. Some were quick to remind him of the “old times” they felt the songwriter was betraying. Indeed, the Manichaean concept of politics was then much more popular. But Savvopoulos never embraced her.

Already in 1966, he sang about his situation and his expectations: “Sun, red leader, / give a signal to you / and joy will rise” (Sun, leader). During the junta, he was silenced and imprisoned, like many other free voices. In subsequent years, he never ceased to denounce the lack of freedom: “In this place, lovers eat dirty bread” (Zeybeko). Disrupt civil drama: “Goose hair has turned gray / Turned from the side of exile” (Amnesty 64). And look forward to the “comrade’s struggle/the agony of this place for life” (At an EFEE meeting).

But with democracy now strong, the leading troubadour demanded the right to criticize. In a handy burst of political song in 1979, he didn’t hesitate to sing, “What’s the fault of the black rulers, Kapps, PASOK and No Dow? / We fanned the cloud in which all of them were nurturing” (For Socialism). And in “The Citizen”: “Remember when you hung out in exile / and read Ritso and an ancient tragedy? / Now you sit on the balcony / and talk to people like a lifeguard.” And he invited: “Come without politicians / with wings in flight / not to manifesto monasteries / but to that bar that stays up late” (For children who are members of the party). Even in Acharnis in 1977, he boldly parodied his own mentors. “It was post-colonialism and the melodramatic left absolutely prevailed. Some pacifist platitudes,” he told me in one of our many interviews about Eleftherotype and the Second ERT Program.

“Perhaps it was not entirely the fault of Ritsos or Theodorakis. It was not the fault of these kings. We were bitten by the most regal.” He and his company defined themselves differently: “Modern, but with substance. Melancholy with humor. Generously poor and left with freedom.” So much freedom that it contains the Christian faith, which he discovered “not as a religion, but as an experience. I grew up, became more beautiful, and I began to need these things.

In the early 1980s, many were suspicious of this new side of Savvopoulos. In the summer of 1983, in the magazine “Scholiastis”, Giannis Milios even indicated in his songs “an ideological rapprochement between the left and Christian nationalist doctrine.” What else could the lyrics “whether with antiquities, or with Orthodoxy, the communities of the Greeks make up another galaxy” hide? “Someone Giannis Milios (…) is trying to prove that Savvopoulos is a nationalist and a rightist, if not a youthist. (…) Well, aren’t they ashamed?” Aris Davarakis from Postman replied angrily. Like Theodorakis and Hadjidakis, Savvopoulos often suffered the consequences of challenging stereotypes, any stereotypes in a Greek society that is always united by division. And what he just did not hear in 1989, when he commented on the scandal with Koskotas with “Haircut”: “At those musical performances in Plaka, I played a man who cut his hair on stage to punish himself for being progressive all these years. .”

The “self-punishment” was ruthless. He sang: “The map of this state hides a deceit / which reaches a known wild ruminant” (Kolohellenes). “…Voices of postcolonialism/this surfer/democratic/new selfishness, us” (“We are the 60s”). “The Left failed to sympathize” (“The Failure of the Left”). And what solution did he propose? “Tall, like a rofo / to collect earth and water / in the meantime, I’ll think of something / some zigzag matotak, mattotak.” If all this was not enough to shock those who are usually shocked, Savvopoulos also teased his son: contrary to what he chose for himself during the junta, he would normally have gone as a soldier during a democracy. In fact, in 1991 he gave concerts in the Akriti camps in the presence of the then Minister Ioannis Varvitsiotis. Later I asked him if it was necessary – “at least for aesthetic reasons”: “Sometimes I can’t follow aesthetics,” he replied. “Ethics is more important here. For a whole month the press wrote that I was being paid incredible amounts, and I did not ask for and did not receive a franc. The noise was such that the prosecutor intervened in the case, who eventually acquitted me completely. But this was not written anywhere. Nobody apologized. What is this aesthetic?

In 1997, when Kostas Simitis was prime minister, Savvopoulos suggested in an interview not to discuss politics: “Now this is a boring topic, believe me. Not so much because we are ruled by third-rate failed accountants, but because their leftist education serves as an alibi to hide their complete lack of vision and true purpose. Let’s add: “The worst thing is that there is no opposition either. More Neuterdales out there! Three years passed before he masterfully reformulated: “I did not underestimate Simitis at all. Just as I didn’t underestimate Mitsotakis when I looked for the “plumber” in him. We are a country of visions, which, however, does not know how to build. He doesn’t know the basics. This ignorance combined with visions can be very dangerous, even destructive. So we need “plumbers” or “accountants” who can at least take the necessary steps.”

He criticized not only political power: “In general, the leadership in Greece – political, ecclesiastical, military – is uncivilized. And the media world is not retreating.” The same and worse, the world of neoenrichment: “In the 90s, popular entertainment was petty-bourgeois, it went off scale. Some of Syngrou’s roosters prevailed, some limped.” He also condemned by name persons who once possessed great power and influence, from Archbishop Christodoulos to Stavros Psycharis. He frequently questions his majesty’s choice, “the public”. However, he always keeps his tender words – and lyrics – for completely different personalities, such as journalist Soula Alexandropoulou and Mimis Despotidis, the legendary “Petros” from EPON, “Epitheorisis Technis” and “Temelio”: “With them, I was on the other left, / who saw the world as a work of art / with complete and immortal wings” (I saw Sulla and Despotides). And in another place: “And we, who turned to the left, what was the mistake? / The idol was a nightmare, / but the passion is true” (Better days are yet to come). He chose the side of the citizen, not the politician: “I was offered ministries, first place in the State Department. I said “thank you my honor” but I don’t have the talent for that.”

In 2016, a few months after the SYRIZA-ANEL government referendum, Savvopoulos insisted that “we are going back to the sixties again for universality, human rights, freedom. Now we have the system interrogated again, but this time on the right. But I am sure that we will return to normal life. It always happens that way.” In conclusion: “I don’t care if authoritarianism is left or right. We must not accept it and disobey.” You can agree or disagree with him. But what is strange: his political songs still have such power that the young singer Natassa Bofiliou spontaneously paraphrased him in The Music Box to express her ideological belief: “I am not Pashoka / but I am KKE / I am what I am / and what I sing for you” (this winter).