L'Estaca

"L'Estaca"
Song by Lluís Llach
Language	Catalan
English title	The Stake
Written	1968
Genre	Nova canço
Songwriter(s)	Lluís Llach

L'Estaca (Catalan pronunciation: [ɫəsˈtakə], meaning "the stake", figurative sense "without liberty") is a song composed by the Catalan artist Lluís Llach in 1968.

The song, which has been translated into several languages, has become so popular in some countries that it is erroneously considered to be a locally written song. It was composed during the dictatorship of General Franco in Spain and is a call for unity of action to achieve freedom. The song has become a symbol of the fight for freedom everywhere.

Polish singer-songwriter Jacek Kaczmarski was inspired to write new lyrics to the melody of L'Estaca after hearing the song on one of several Spanish records he borrowed from a friend in December 1978. The result was Mury, which became one of his most famous compositions after it was adopted by the Polish trade union Solidarność and sung at countless rallies, meetings, protests and strikes throughout Poland during the 1980s.

Lakadjina and Yasser Jeradi made a version of the song that became the anthem of the Tunisian Revolution in 2011

L'Estaca is also an anthem for the supporters of the rugby team USAP, of Perpignan in Northern Catalonia, in France.

The song was also sung in Bilbao in Basque on September 16, 2017 in support of Catalonia's Referendum on Independence scheduled for October 1, 2017 before a crowd of 32,000.

The lyrics describe the struggle for freedom using a metaphor of being tied to a stake.

The song is a conversation held in a doorway at dawn, where the main character asks Grandfather Siset "Don't you see the stake that we're all tied to? If we can't take it down, we'll never be able to walk." and the old man tells him that the only way to get free is by working together: "If we all pull, it will fall down. If I pull this way and you pull that way, it will surely fall, fall, fall, and we will be able to liberate ourselves."

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Wikipedia