“Química”, by Mauricio Redolés: a chronicle of the student movement during the Chilean military dictatorship

The song “Química,” by Mauricio Redolés, presents a chronicle of the resistence against the Chilean military dictatorchip among high school students in the 1980s. Based on a memory, an anecdote and a graffiti tag, the story is told from an internal viewpoint, mobilizing memory, history and counterculture in its poiesis. With the social uprising (also known as the “estallido social”) of October 2019, the chorus of “Química” appeared in certain graffiti in the city of Santiago, reactivating its challenge to the hegemonic reality, thirty years after it was originally formulated. The research I present here includes an analysis of this song, based on Carlo Ginzburg’s model of cultural history, and Jacques Attali’s postulates about music and prophecy, in an effort to unravel the microhistory implied in the lyrics, the subaltern class they describe, and the possibility of dialogue with today’s Chile.