May the Omelette Flip Over (Que la tortilla se vuelva)

Music piece by:
Chicho Sánchez Ferlosio. Popularized by Quilapayún
Testimony by:
Claudio Melgarejo
Experience in:
Comisaría de Concepción, November 1973

I spent a week in captivity, in November 1973. I didn’t hear many songs, but the most popular ones sung by my comrades were 'Venceremos' (We Shall be Victorious) and 'Que la tortilla se vuelva' (May the Omelette Flip Over), also known as 'The Tomato Song', which portrays the bosses' exploitation of the workers.

At that time, the young in Latin American were steeped in revolutionary change and we empathised with the situation around Che Guevara and Cuba.

After my imprisonment in the police station in Concepción, I was required to sign in at the prison at 70 Chacabuco Street (Concepción Prison/El Manzano Prison) for the next five years. There I was tortured. They would take me away in a vehicle, with a hood over my head, and I would be found in the street at dawn.


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Published on: 13 July 2015

The grass covering the roads
is trampled on by ramblers
and the worker’s wife
is trampled on by four rascals
those types who have money.

What fault is the tomato's
resting peacefully on the vine
if some bastard comes along
and sticks it in a can
and sends it off to Caracas.

The lords of the mine
bought a steelyard balance
to weigh the money
that every week
they steal from the poor worker.

When will God in heaven wish
for the omelet to be flipped over
so that the poor eat bread
and the rich eat shit.

Related testimonies:

  • How We Resemble Each Other (En qué nos parecemos)  Luis Cifuentes Seves, Campamento de Prisioneros, Estadio Nacional, September - November 1973

    During the 1960s, the group Quilapayún popularised this old Spanish song in Chile. Víctor Canto and I performed it as a duet in Santiago’s National Stadium, which had been converted into a concentration, torture and extermination camp.

  • How We Resemble Each Other (En qué nos parecemos)  Scarlett Mathieu, Campamento de Prisioneros Cuatro Álamos, 1974

    In Cuatro Álamos, I was profoundly marked by the singing of a current detained-disappeared named Juan Chacón. He sang ‘En qué nos parecemos’, a love song from the Spanish Civil War. It remained engraved in me because that comrade disappeared from Cuatro Álamos.

  • Free (Libre)  Marianella Ubilla, Campamento Prisioneros Estadio Regional, Christmas 1973

    I was taken prisoner on 23 November 1973, at the University of Concepción. In the Regional Stadium of Concepción, we had to sing the National Anthem every day.

  • I’m Not from Here - To my Comrade, my Love (No soy de aquí - A mi compañera)  Alfonso Padilla Silva, Campamento Prisioneros Estadio Regional, 25 December 1973

    The choir of male prisoners sang a piece called 'A mi compañera' (To my comrade, my love) to the music of 'No soy de aquí, ni soy de allá' (I'm not from here, nor from there) by Facundo Cabral.

  • We Shall Overcome  Alfonso Padilla Silva, Cárcel de Concepción / Cárcel El Manzano, December 1974

    When the concentration camp that operated for nearly five months at the Regional Stadium of Concepción was closed in early February 1974, hundreds of political prisoners were transferred to the Concepción Prison, a wing of which was turned into a concentration camp.

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