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“El necio” (“The Bull-headed one,” 1991); in
Silvio, 1992

In this song, Rodríguez reaffirms his faith in the Revolution, with anger toward those who would break it down. As he told Juventud Rebelde:

[La cólera que provoca el nacimiento de “El necio” fue a] ver el camino que está tomando el mundo, saber que estamos en un momento de definiciones. Para muchos no es ningún secreto el triunfalismo con que Estados Unidos emprende su campaña muy fuerte contra Cuba. Hay muchos que ven venir la agresión a nosotros. Van a tratar de desestablizar el país o de provocarnos. Y hay que morirse por la Patria. No hay alternativas (Diaz Pérez 1995: 274).^[1]

In a more recent interview, he explained that while he had been thinking of the breakdown of communism in the Soviet Union as a potential subject for a song, it was a personal attack on him at the Miami airport that served as its final catalyst:

Cuando escribí “El necio,” estaba pensando en Fidel y, hasta cierto punto, en mí. . . Lo que me llevó a escribirla fue el ambiente ideológico de finales de los 80, principios de los 90, el derrumbe del campo socialista. Ya estaba la glasnost en la Unión Soviética y se veía que aquello apuntaba hacia algo catastrófico. . .

[Este idea] se me unió con una experiencia que había tenido, con un tránsito una vez por Miami yendo hacia Puerto Rico... Me rompieron una guitarra. Fueron cubanos que trabajaban en el aeropuerto quienes le saltaron encima. Culpa mía creo yo, porque tenía una pegatina de Fidel y una bandera cubana, y no me dio la gana de quitarlas. Digamos que me lo busqué. Cuando llegué a Puerto Rico, escuché en la radio un programa desde Miami donde decían que la contrarrevolución estaba muy decaída porque habían pasado los revolucionarios ‘fulano’ y ‘mengano’, entre ellos yo, por Miami y en otra época nos hubieran arrastrado, hubieran limpiado las calles con nosotros. . .

En mis huesos, en mi carne, nunca había sufrido una amenaza pública de esa envergadura.  . . Eso me marcó. No logró cuajar en aquel momento y fue como una asignatura pendiente. Y parece que por esos artilugios de la mente humana, el derrumbe de la Unión Soviética y lo que se avecinaba, más lo de Miami, se unió y creó la química necesaria para hacer “El necio.”

Por eso es que ‘dicen que me arrastrarán por sobre rocas, cuando la revolución se venga abajo…,‘ De alguna forma, yo conté esa revolución que se estaba yendo abajo en la Unión Soviética y los augurios de la nuestra (Rodríguez Derivet 2005).^[2]

The song became a symbol of Cuban resistance against imperialism when it was taken up as an anthem by the five suspected Cuban terrorists who were jailed in Miami from the mid-1990s. In the verses, Rodríguez recognizes that the Communist system, as had been known, is lost (“a necedad de vivir sin tener precio”). He is threatened by unnamed people to change (“Me vienen a convidar a arrepentirme,” “Dirán que pasó de moda la locura,” “Dicen que me arrastrarán por sobre rocas”). Nonetheless, he refuses to change (“Yo quiero seguir jugando a lo perdido”).

Fig. 14-“El necio,” Lyrics and chord chart

Harmonically, the verse (Ex. 14A) is quite static. The opening eight measures have a bass pedal on E, starting with the tonic in E minor and circling via A major (IV, in lieu of A minor); a Bb diminished chord serves as the cadential chord, resolving by two common tones E and G to the tonic. Similarly, the melody is monotone, recalling the verse of “La era está pariendo un corazón” described earlier. The rapidly repeated notes – the dodecasyllabled text is condensed into just over two measures--are reminiscent of the patter of a fool muttering to himself, like patter dialogue in opera buffa. Hence, the verse is a musical picture of resignation--harmonically, melodically, and dynamically. 

Ex. 14A-“El necio,” Verse

In contrast, the chorus (Ex. 14B), where the songwriter declares that he cannot predict destiny, has the tone of a defiant anthem. Set in G major, with longer notes and arpeggios in the melody and a shorter, nonasyllabled text, it invites the audience to sing along. The harmony repeats the progression of G (I) – D (V) – C (IV) with each declaration, reaching its peak in melodic pitch at “que será divino.” At that point, the pessimism of the verses returns – rather than resolving to G major, the harmony moves back to E minor on “Yo me muero como viví.” The chorus leads back to the verse in E minor, but without an authentic cadence, as the diminished Bb chord substitutes for the dominant.

Ex. 14B, “El necio,” Chorus

• [1] “[The anger that provoked the creation of “El necio” was] seeing the path that the world was taking and knowing that we were in a defining moment. For many it is no secret the triumphalism with which the United States is undertaking its hard campaign against Cuba. There are many who see the coming aggression against us. They are going to try to destabilize the country or provoke us. One has to die for the country. There are no alternatives.”
• [2] “When I wrote ‘El necio,’ I was thinking of Fidel, and to a certain point, me. What brought me to write it was the ideological environment of the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s and the collapse of socialism. The Soviet Union was under glasnost and one could see that it pointed to something catastrophic.
  “[The idea] came together with an experience I had had during a transit stop one time in Miami going toward Puerto Rico. They broke my guitar. Cuban exiles working at the airport threw it. I thought it was my fault, as the case had had a Fidel sticker and a Cuban flag, and I hadn’t wanted to take them off. Let’s say I was looking for it. When I arrived in Puerto Rico, I heard a Miami radio program that said that the counterrevolution was deteriorating because some revolutionaries—so-and-so and what’s-his-name, including myself—had passed through Miami and that in another time, they would have arrested us and cleaned the streets with us.
  “I had never before suffered such a public threat of that scope. It had an impact on me. It didn’t jell immediately and was like a pending subject. And it seemed that for those aspects of the human mind, the fall of the Soviet Union and what it was approaching, and the Miami incident united to create the chemistry necessary to create ‘El necio.’
  “For this reason I say ‘dicen que me arrastrarán por sobre rocas, cuando la revolución se venga abajo…,‘ In a way, I was telling the story of the decline in the revolution in the Soviet Union and what it augured for ours.”

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