The first time I listened live to Noel Nicola was in a famous theater room in Santiago de Cuba, Macubá, in the distant 2002. In a simple scenario, he, behind his guitar, hunched as a sunscreen, with his serious and melodious voice and a plastic glass with a rum swallow at his feet, seemed accessible and distant at the same time.
That night the troubadour was long singing, telling us anecdotes and sharing his music. I knew many of his songs, thanks to my father, and I went there as who is going to see a legend. Indeed, it was.
Between the bunch of songs, own and others, between laughs and songs, there was one, unknown to me, which marked me deeply: “DICTIONS “. That song was Cuba itself: its people, its life, its contradictions, their struggles.
Over time, I found “DICTIONS “ in Give me my voicethe penultimate album by Noel Nicola, recorded between 1997 and 1999 in the ABDALA studios of Havana and published in 2000. The theme appears as cut number 7 of the 15 of the album and, with all intention, partly part of the sequence of songs, creating a deep cut, a blow of reflection.
In the preamble of the subject, while the sound of a clavicordio, that European musical instrument of keyboard and percussed, popular rope is heard during the rebirth, Noel says: “With forgiveness of Don Antonio Machado, for his Proverbs and songs“
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g30z2nzf2qc
This reference to Machado is not accidental: in his poem “Campos de Castilla “ (1912), the Spanish poet reflects on popular wisdom, the search for meaning and human condition. Noel takes those echoes and adapts them to their own context, exposing universal complexities of life.
“Dicencies” It is an introspection song. Talk about truth, love, fear and life itself, through a sequence of verses that explore our deepest contradictions.
On August 7, 2025, no 20 years have passed since Noel Nicola left this world. To pay tribute, I have proposed to accompany with a series of photos this song that, after almost a quarter of a century of having heard it for the first time, continues to shudder.
Dices
Someone put in the sun
His truth in the morning;
The truth was dried.
The truth dried up
Because I was not wet,
rather I was dusty,
next to nothing.
Some make love
To live without reservations,
Others are afraid of it.
And if life is life
And if love is life,
What is your fear,
to life?
The one who crosses without looking
Any obstacle
It stays in half.
Well, if you throw yourself into the finish line
You carry your eyes closed …
How do you know where it is?
You will know.
Some do to fill
its hollow humanities,
Others leave them the same.
That is why anything
that he is passionate about me:
For hole is the pit …
Butterfly, something else!
