Marta Sánchez: “I am not valued as a composer as much as I should be because I don’t carry a guitar”

There are interviews that go awry as soon as they begin, we don’t really know why, and that don’t completely straighten out, no matter how long the recorder is on, despite the efforts of both parties to achieve it. This is one of them. The appointment with Marta Sánchez is at six in the afternoon, indoors, at Kabuki, an exclusive fashionable Madrid restaurant owned by her partner, the Canarian businessman Federico León, Fede for her and her friends, who receives and chats very friendly with the journalist until the interviewee arrives. Sánchez greets correctly, but with a colder air, who knows if she is shy or reserved, and she offers herself to the procedure without further ceremony. Now alone, installed face to face at the best table in the place, it is necessary to break the ice. The success of the attempt is relative.

I suspect you’re not keen on interviews. What are they for you, after almost 40 years of career?

I think interviews are a kind of reminder to people that you are there. An important window for artists. I need my audience, which gives meaning to my career. You have to water the plant so that it remains healthy and growing, keep winding the machinery. But, yes, sometimes in interviews a series of curiosities are demanded from the interviewer, personal data, which are not so necessary.

What would you like to talk about in this one?

It would be great to talk about one’s work. Explain what you are up to, what you present, what you want people to know about you professionally, or about aspects of life, a little bit of everything. Less about politics, because you can’t talk about politics in this country.

Because?

Because your opinion is not respected.

Have you not felt respected by something you have said?

No. But don’t take that headline from me, please, I’m begging you. It’s like football, if you are from Atleti, those from Real Madrid get angry, and if you are from Real Madrid, those from Atleti get angry.

Don’t take that headline from me, please, I’m begging you. It’s like football, if you are from Atleti, those from Real Madrid get angry, and if you are from Real Madrid, those from Atleti get angry.”

Do you think that influences whether or not people go to your concerts?

No. People go to my concerts to see me sing and enjoy my music. But, going back to the interviews, if you’re going to mess with me with that headline, you’re going to ruin me, and you’re not going to help me, because people take headlines very personally. You can put it in the text, but not in a title.

Does criticism affect you that much?

There is a saying that today’s newspaper wraps tomorrow’s fish. So, I always think about that a little bit. Everything happens. Everything will pass. But, at the moment, they do bother me.

I went to see her when she sang with Ole Ole, at 20 years old, and he ate up the stage. How do you see that Marta today?

That Marta had it very clear from the age of five that she wanted to sing, because it was my father’s profession, and what made me happy. At 20 years old, she knew she wanted to be special. I. Only. And, yes, I can boast of not having copied anyone. My father, who was an opera singer, said: “Do the best you can and, above all, never copy anyone.” Yes, I have had influences. It is the law of life. We feed and feed back on what we have heard. La Jurado, Ana Belén or Luz Casal are artists that I greatly admire and who have inspired me.

And vice versa, have you felt imitated?

Don’t know. Anyway, after so many years of music, maybe I have left some mark on my colleagues in my way of playing and interpreting a style. Yes, but I’m not going to tell you a specific name.

Do you think you have reached your professional fullness?

I have been singing for almost 40 years and I think I have mastered my instrument, I have learned a lot from it and I have made it my ally. There is something that works against me and that is time. The vocal cords age, like the body, and lose the high notes. I have to relocate my voice. Maybe now I am not in full number 1 on the radio, but I am in serenity, objectivity and selection. Now is when I control my career the most.

Do you still get excited about your songs?

With some, of course. And more and more, because, when you’re in the thick of things, promoting, in the midst of a whirlwind, it’s a bit of a day-to-day life. But when the years go by and you listen to them again, you say: how beautifully I sang this, what a lucid and tasteful interpretation.

Do you sing better when you are happy or when you suffer?

There is no need to mix. I have felt unbearable pain working through personal issues, breakups, or losses, or disappointments, the emotion brings everything to the surface. But your education also counts a lot, and my parents taught me that you have to restrain yourself. My father sang an opera the day my grandfather died.

Does she tie herself short?

Yes, I am very demanding of myself, but also very enjoyable. I am very Taurus, very passionate, visceral, but also very earthly, very homely, very much my thing, and I defend what I consider I have to defend tooth and nail.

Do you see the people coming?

No, it’s hard for me, I’m very trusting. Too much. Although, after many blows and stumbles I am learning, but even so I still make mistakes, because people know how to pretend very well and I am terrible at pretending, it shows everything. And that, in this civilization, brings more problems than benefits.

What drives her crazy?

Above all, bad education, mediocrity. Also falsehood, non-empathy, dirty people.

Deseaseada?

Yes, dirty. In customs, in order, in cleanliness, everything.

Do you consider yourself conservative?

On many issues, yes, on others I am very modern, but, yes, I tend to be more conservative. There are things that I don’t like aesthetically or morally, or in terms of customs. But, come on, I am respectful of my neighbor doing what he wants in his life.

Religious?

Yes, my way. I had a time when my sister died [Paz Sánchez, su melliza, murió de cáncer a los 38 años] that I felt angry with God and with the world, but I’m back. I have my ideals, my values ​​and my beliefs.

Your song It’s me He is a prodigy of self-affirmation. Did you write it because of a breakup?

I wrote that song in my kitchen and it came from my soul. It was after a breakup, but I wasn’t the one abandoned. She had left a partner and, yes, it is a I Will Survive Spanish. But, come on, I have written very good songs in all my emotional moments.

What do you feel when you listen to that hymn?

Well, look, when I listen to my lyrics, and they have been hits, I think that, in some way, I am not valued as a composer as much as I perhaps should be, especially because I don’t carry a guitar hanging, which is the image with which it is associated. to singer-songwriters in this country.

We all have a past. Sometimes I am horrified by some of the looks I wore, but I also think that I have known how to rectify them in time and correct myself.”

Its image has also been its hallmark, and 40 years goes a long way.

We all have a past. Sometimes I am horrified by some looks that I had, but I also think that I have known how to rectify it in time and correct myself. Now I don’t risk it as much anymore because, over time, the features of my face don’t allow it. With age you have to have more restraint.

I love that she claims herself as an author. It is not common in our generation.

Well, there have always been women who are worth a lot. It is true that the difference in rights and position and opportunities has left a lot of pain. From Cleopatra, Marie Curie, Marilyn Monroe, Thatcher, Joan of Arc. There have always been powerful women. The thing is that we have to continue fighting, but I believe that we have been given a lot of room throughout this fight.

Have you felt machismo in your union?

In the sense that the leadership positions were mostly men, but it is also true that I am the darling of Spanish pop.

She told her friend Vicky Martin Berrocal on his podcast Alone that doesn’t let menopause get to you. Do you have Peter Pan syndrome?

Let’s see how I explain it to you.

Try it: I’m menopausal too.

It seems hypocritical to me to praise menopause as something beautiful or a wonderful stage. It may seem like a wonderful stage to you, but I believe that 99.9 percent of women don’t think so. I have no problem having birthdays. On May 8 I turn 58 and I plan to celebrate it in style, and more and more.

I would be afraid of old age without getting along with myself. “Fear of loneliness miscarried”

Are you afraid of old age?

I would be afraid of old age without getting along with myself. Fear of loneliness poorly handled. The danger of ending up alone is very likely. That my partner is not there because he leaves me, or I leave him, or he dies before me. When I grow up I would like to get along very well with myself, with nature, and appreciate every minute of my life. And I’m preparing for that.

As?

I do therapy and my therapist recommends that I practice two very important things: acceptance and sending the unconscious, your bad Jiminy Cricket, to hell. I’m getting there after a lot of therapy.

Your daughter is the age you were when you started, how is she doing? of them?

Well, my daughter, who is 20 years old, is older than I was when I started and our of them It was very different from that of our children. I think it’s our fault: before things were different, we were educated in a different way, much more effective. Before there were things in which minors were not protected, but between that and today there is a middle ground, and I think that a stricter education is good.

Can you fall in love at any age?

Of course, up to 89 years old. What’s more, I think that at our ages, 50 and 60, we have a moment of opening up to love even more intelligently, knowing what you want and what you don’t want. You are prepared to receive, perhaps, the greatest love of your life.

Are you aware of your uptight diva image out there?

Yes, and I don’t understand it, because I’m the complete opposite.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t show himself as he is in the interviews.

I just think that it is not necessary to know everything about an artist, or about anyone. I admire Meryl Streep very much and I don’t know anything about her.