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This cuecaMusic genre (usually for voice and accompaniment) and partner dance, found in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. was composed at Chacabuco sometime between November 1973 and February 1974 and was sung by Los de Chacabuco, of which Víctor Canto and I were members.

This song was written very quickly and was ready in less than a day. I don’t remember exactly where we were when we composed it, but it may have been the house I shared with other comrades or the house where the group rehearsed - located in what we called 'the civic district' - or seated at the group tables where we ate.

The group Los de Chacabuco was created and conducted by Ángel Parra. Its members (in alphabetical order) were: Víctor Canto, Manuel Castro, Ángel Cereceda Parra (Ángel Parra), Luis Cifuentes, Marcelo Concha, Luis Corvalán Márquez, Antonio González, Manuel Ipinza, Ernesto Parra, Julio Vega and Ricardo Yocelewski.

The first time we played the cueca at the weekly show, the audience roared in laughter because the situations described were so familiar to everyone.

This cueca was secretly recorded at Chacabuco by Alberto Corvalán Castillo, son of the Communist Party secretary-general Luis Corvalán, with assistance from Guillermo Orrego and Domingo Chávez. Alberto was to die in Bulgaria as a consequence of the torture to which he had been subjected at the National Stadium’s velodrome that caused him irreparable heart damage.

It was recorded from underneath the wood plank stage the prisoners themselves had built. An official stationed at the concentration camp supplied the cassette recorder. Ángel Parra took the cassette out of the camp and it was first produced as a vinyl LP in Italy between 1974 and 1975. This cueca also appears on Ángel Parra’s record Pisagua + Chacabuco, produced in 2003 in Chile.

The words might be difficult to understand as they refer to concentration camp culture, making fun of the military with such subtlety that they never understood them.

• Concha, Marcelo