Alan Bush wrote three songs for Baritone and Piano to poems by the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. They are composed in the original Spanish text. In the poem of the first song, 'Nada Mas', translated literally as 'Nothing More', Neruda defines his responsibility to humanity.
"I wished to be like bread.
From the struggle to bring more light on earth
I did not absent myself."
In the second song, 'El Perezosa', the indolent man, the poet declares his love of life in his beautiful Chile, where wine comes to life between the sea and the mountains, where the sun does wonders with the wheat. He does not wish to change his planet.
The text of the third song is taken from his long poem, 'El Pueblo', the people. He sings of the people who travel on foot, who never fight with another of their kind, whose prowess is with the wheat for it to become bread, with the great tree for it to yield wood, with the sea for it to produce its riches.
"Those who make so many things
Ought not to be the owners of everything.
Not a man without a glove of gold!
Not a woman without her diadem!
You set fire to life.
Such people are being born every day
And will overflow the world".