In his document, Carlos Alberto Solari was listed. But for a long time, that name had been reserved for procedures and formalities. For the rest of the country, he was the Indio: a musician to some, a poet to others, an icon for many, and an impossible figure to ignore even for those who had never listened to one of his songs. A week after his death, that collective identity seems more alive than ever.
Solari was a special guy who lived in La Plata and observed the world with distrust and curiosity until in 1976 he founded, along with guitarist Eduardo “Skay” Beilinson, his magnum opus: Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota. Right from their extravagant name, Los Redondos promised to break with the superlogical of national rock. What began as a cult band in the underground turned Solari into the most commanding figure in Latin American rock, boasting the largest pogo in the universe.
An angel for solitude
From Los Redondos to the Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado, he never seemed to talk to the victors or the masters who play at being the slave. His songs found those who had suffered worse things, those who felt out of place, those who moved through life convinced that every prisoner is political, that the world was rarely as simple as they pretended to make it seem, and those who, thank God, also didn’t believe what they heard.
In his lyrics, lovable losers inhabited, characters battered by reality and souls seeking refuge. They found companionship not only in the bands but also among themselves. They were the future that had arrived a long time ago, they were the youth who had to wave the flags of their hearts, whether the sun shone or not.
There was a feeling difficult to explain. The Indio seemed to know the stories of those who listened to him without having ever seen them. Many ricoteros found in his words a voice that accompanied them when no one else seemed to do so, but reminding them that they deserved beautiful miracles and that they were going to happen.
While much of the culture celebrated the mainstream embodied in a “pop beast,” his songs stopped at the margins. There were the lonely in the strip club, the disenchanted, those who persevered even when the path seemed dark. For them, he wrote verses that ended up functioning as collective hugs. "When the night is darkest, the day comes in your heart" stopped being a song lyric to become a way of resisting.
The identification was so deep that it transcended his music. For thousands, he occupied a place similar to that of a life companion. A man who understood that life could be hard and that, nevertheless, there were always reasons to keep going because the luck of the beginner couldn’t fail.
In a country accustomed to idols, the Indio ended up being something else. For many, he was the voice that appeared in their headphones during the worst nights. For others, the one responsible for reminding them that we all deserved beautiful miracles that sooner or later, would happen. And for an entire generation, simply, their only hero in this mess.
Goodbyes are those sweet loves
For hours, thousands of ricoteros from all over Argentina paid tribute to him in the Parque de los Trabajadores in Villa Domínico. In the pain of having said goodbye to their idol, there were songs from someone who had given words to their joys, defeats, and solitudes. Regardless of where they lived, fans traveled for hours to any city to attend the ricotera masses, masses that were much more than just watching a rock and roll concert.
Death was never a foreign topic in the Indio's universe. It inhabited his songs and interviews disguised in a kind of prophecy. However, far from fearing it, he seemed to observe it with the same curiosity he had looked at the world since he was young. He continued writing and recording even when Parkinson's completely conditioned his daily life. He wanted death to find him alive, and for that, he founded El Mister and the Extinct Marsupials, a band alongside Los Fundamentalistas where, with more experimental music, he kept himself more active.
El Mister dedicated emotional words to Gustavo Cerati on the day of his death, demonstrating that they had always found themselves on the same side of the fuse and that their rivalry was more of a myth fostered by the media and the public than a real enmity. In his open letter, he emphasized being convinced that true artists came to know death before dying, a phrase that summed up his relationship with the passage to immortality.
At first, the news that Parkinson's had exhausted the star generated a sea of uncertainty among his followers. Several times violence had been done by lying about his death, and the ricoteros did not want to take the bait once again until the artist's official Instagram account was herald of terrible news and goodbye arrived.
There were those who found amazing coincidences between some of those songs and the circumstances of his death. But beyond any theory, what is certain is that Solari had been conversing with finitude for decades. He had learned that living cost life and that every story, even the most extraordinary ones, eventually faced its last page. For many, his farewell had something prophetic about it. On June 5, at nine in the morning (numbers that appear in his song Flight 956, a metaphor for a farewell), in his house in Parque Leloir, it was confirmed that a silly and amateur angel led him to the paradise to which he had been condemned and the Indio Solari left singing.
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