Personal History

The Spanish Civil War was sung to me long before I had any idea what it was about. My father, folksinger Tom Glazer, along with Pete Seeger and fellow musicians Butch Hawes and Bess Lomax, had recorded an album on Asch Records called Songs of the Lincoln Brigade in 1943. Seeger had gathered this group of musicians together after the remarkable success in the United States of another album, Six Songs for Democracy, recorded in Spain during the war and sung by the noted tenor and German antifascist Ernst Busch and a chorus of German volunteers. “Los Cuatro Generales” appeared on the German album and has become one of the most popular and well recognized songs originating in the Spanish conflict. Like so many of the songs that came out of the Spanish Civil War, “The Four Insurgent Generals,” as it is known in English, became something of an anthem for the American Left, as sympathizers with the cause of antifascism.

I grew up during the 1960s and the era of the Vietnam War, the first significant resurgence of widespread left-wing, antigovernment sentiment since the 1930s. When my parents invited friends and relatives over for dinner parties during this period, my father would always take out his guitar. More often than not, someone would ask him to sing a Spanish Civil War song, and I distinctly remember the request: “Sing the one about the four generals.” When my father started strumming his guitar and singing these songs, a reverent hush would fall on the room. Eyes would close, feet would tap gently, and a soft humming could be heard, or some voices singing along. This beautiful music created an emotional atmosphere I could neither fathom nor ignore. Thirty years later, those songs led me into this work. I found out who the four generals were—Franco, Mola, Varela, and Queipo de Llano—the nature of their betrayal and why, a few verses later, the song called for their hanging on Christmas Eve.