In this episode we discuss a song by legendary Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara, ‘Cuando voy al trabajo’. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Jara – admired by Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and others – became a powerful voice for social change and hope throughout Chile and beyond. His life was to end tragically under the bullets of a new, brutal military regime.

In the song, narrated in the first person, we follow a construction worker as he is on his way to his building site, absorbed by thoughts of his loved one and the life they have just started to build up together. We’ll see verbs related to daily routine in the present tense and language which is at once simple and poetic.