The ten Austral banknote and Manal

Searching, organizing, or messing things up—depending on how one looks at it—I found an old ten-austral banknote, with the sole peculiarity that it had been written on. It has a phrase, and whoever wrote it had the honesty to mention its author, or at least where it was taken from. The back of the banknote features the image of progress and was untouched by ink. On the front, the phrase is written in four lines, and the word “important” happens to land right on the head of Santiago Derqui, who, although he was an Argentine president for a few months, was not characterized as being one of the “important” ones. What do I call “important” presidents? For example: Mitre, Sarmiento, Roca, Yrigoyen, Perón, Alfonsín. Coincidence; one thing has nothing to do with the other.

The 10-austral banknote was in circulation during the 1985–1991 period, and part of its lifespan swallowed the inflationary crisis of the Alfonsín and Menem administrations. In my view, people who write on banknotes mostly do so on low-denomination bills. A lengthy topic could be developed about written-on banknotes.

Going into this particular banknote, I am going to see what I can write about the phrase it contains.

The Band Manal was a pioneering trio of blues and rock sung in Spanish, made up of Alejandro Medina (bass, vocals, and keyboards), Claudio Gabis (guitar, harmonica, piano, and organ), and Javier Martínez (drums and vocals). The trio was formed in Buenos Aires in 1968 and dissolved a few years later in 1971. Despite its short trajectory, Manal's influence was fundamental for nascent Argentine rock. (Wikipedia)

The Lyrics No kid. You don't need to have a car or half-a-million-dollar watches, four well-paying jobs, or be a television star. No, no, no, no kid, so that someone can be able to love you, because that way you'll only have just another business. You must not change your origin nor lie about your identity. It is very sad to deny where you come from, what is important is where you are going. No, no, no, no kid, don't do it because that's wrong; if your mother were to listen to you she would die of crying. You don't have to travel to Europe nor study at university, have titles of nobility or prestige in society. No, no, no, no kid, so that someone can be able to love you. None of that is important in love, you'll see.

The Composition of the Song "No pibe" is a song by the Argentine rock band Manal, composed by its drummer and vocalist Javier Martínez. Released in 1969. On October 14, 2010, the city of Berazategui declared Javier Martínez an Illustrious Citizen. (Wikipedia) "For example, in the case of our second single, 'No pibe', we simply highlight that sick and alienated search that exists to achieve the materialization of goods and status." Javier Martínez. (Pelo Magazine. Year 1970. Number 1. Page 42.) (cited on Wikipedia)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_gcj-aUV9w

On the web, there is more information about the song and how it was composed.
Personally, I don't like the way they sing it, but the song itself turns out to be interesting, to a certain extent because it doesn't lose relevance in some aspects. For me, the lyrics aren't entirely satisfying; it preaches a moralizing sermon mixing cars, money, and television with studies and travel, and all of that with love—pretty cheesy for my taste. But right in the middle, it drops the phrase that hits home: when it confronts origin and identity, it seems to be speaking to someone specific, the kid, upon whom it heaps everyone else's "identities." It doesn't even define "love," but it turns out to be catchy and also serves to "point fingers"—the one who doesn't have a car at the one who does, the one who didn't travel at the one who traveled, the one who didn't study at the one who studied, etc. It gets confusing if one starts analyzing: "your origin" would end up being that of a caveman stripped of everything, and even then he would have a spear and a loincloth, which isn't important so that "someone can be able to love you." The message of "love" contrasted with "everything" material represented by the enumeration the author makes is very idyllic, unreal. Furthermore, including education—which is a right and not a thing, education as the process of facilitating learning or the acquisition of knowledge; education, in a dictionary definition, as training intended to develop the intellectual, moral, and emotional capacity of people according to the culture and rules of coexistence of the society to which they belong, meaning a fundamental tool for a subject to determine whether "showing off an automobile" is right or wrong—it puts it on a par with possessing "titles of nobility." Which ones? By the way, Article 16 of the National Constitution of 1953–60 states: (The Argentine Nation admits no prerogatives of blood, nor of birth: There are no personal fueros nor titles of nobility in it....)

But moving on to the phrase—"It is very sad to deny where you come from, what is important is where you are going"—it's good; it's the one that stays, the one that holds the power of the song, the moralizing message, and it's the phrase that whoever wrote on the 10-austral banknote had in mind. Tracing its origin, the banknote was left forgotten in some box for a while; during that time, the 10-austral banknote went out of circulation (1991), which gives me the certainty that the phrase was written by someone before that date. The song dates back to 1969, and the 10 australes were born in 1985—that is, more than 15 years later. Whoever wrote it made a slight modification, changing "sad" to "ugly," and wrote "It is very ugly to deny where you come from," and both words are not synonyms, at least according to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. However, among ordinary people, they are indeed used as synonyms. One would also have to look at the era, "trendy" words. Let's think, for example: does today's "television star" surpass a "YouTube star" when it comes to "kids"? Nowadays, a "television star" is devalued. I wonder: To what extent does a song influence a person? And this question comes up because from 1969 to the present, consumerism—viewed as a tendency to acquire non-essential goods excessively—and materialism—viewed as an attitude of giving too much value to non-material things—have not stopped, but have been on the rise, keeping pace (or more) with the improvements and progress of the future. And this is seen in all social strata (and amplified by social media, which opens up to everyone with exposure). Perhaps that is where the phrase "you don't have to have X thing for X thing" fits—meaning showing off, boasting, flaunting, getting a big head, etc. Nonetheless, someone kept that phrase and expressed it on a banknote. Was it an adult who in their youth listened to Manal? Or was it a young person discovering Manal around the time of the banknote? The phrase could have been written by any human being (given the typographic quality, I'd rule out a print and even more so a robot)—for example, it could have been someone who heard the song on the radio and, out of the most striking phrase, took notes on the first thing they had at hand: the 10-austral banknote. Quantities of assumptions can stem from this. Could one presume that the person who wrote on the banknote was a kid and not a "non-kid"? A kid who, right in the middle of the crisis back then, looked with displeasure upon the "non-kids"? Either way, it remains a minimal acknowledgment of the band Manal by some unknown person who decided to graffiti a 10-austral banknote back in the late '80s—someone we will never know, not even if someone showed up claiming authorship, there is no way to confirm who it is (unless through handwriting analysis? :P). Someone who had the luck (or bad luck) that someone else (me) recovered that 10-austral banknote and published it on a forgotten blog on the web at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century—something unthinkable in the '80s (at least here in Argentina) for a kid (since a "non-kid" might have been able to boast of having internet by the mid-'90s :P).