The regime that ended with a song

It’s the only revolution in world history (that we know of) that began with a Eurovision song. This week, Portugal marks 50 years since the Carnation Revolution ended decades of dictatorship. We speak to Alex Fernandes, author of a new accessible history of the revolution, about the day that changed everything. We’re also talking about the UK’s missed opportunity to give an entire generation fun memories (and skills, but mostly fun memories) and Milan's ice cream uproar.

Alex’s book, ‘The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal’s Dictatorship Fell’ is out now. You can find him on Twitter here and read his article on the music of the revolution here.

Inspiration Station offerings: ‘E Depois Do Adeus’ by Paulo de Carvalho; Grândola, Vila Morena by José Afonso and MARO on tour. Bonus entry: the ‘Feat. NATURE’ playlist.

Other resources for this episode:

‘What is behind the UK’s labour shortage?’ - UK in a Changing Europe, February 2024

‘Percentage of businesses experiencing a shortage of workers in the United Kingdom in 2023, by industry sector’ - Statista, November 2023

‘Nature is an artist! Inside AKQA’s design for mammoth Spotify and UN project, Sounds Right’ - It’s Nice That, April 2024

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Episode Transcript

INTRODUCTION – 0’22”

DOMINIC: Could you do that again, Katy? 

KATY: Do what?

D: What you were just doing before we pressed record.

K: Entertaining you by pretending to have a clown nose on and squeeze it?

D: Yeah.

K: Hofan, hofan. Hofan, 

D: I think it was better last time. 

K: Well, that's the last time I humiliate myself in front of our huge audience of listeners. Hi everyone, and welcome back to The Europeans, a very silly podcast about clown noises, apparently.

D: Katy was just telling me how her baby is really enjoying her clown nose noise, even though her baby doesn't know what a clown nose is yet.

K: Which one of these noises do you think is better? I've actually got two options. Hofan, ofan. And then this one rahu, rahu. 

D: I think I like the first one, but they both have something.

K: Well, I'll be sure to squeeze your nose when I see you next.

D: Oh, do you have to?

K: Anyway, this isn't how I thought we'd be starting the podcast today.

D: No, hello and welcome to The Europeans podcast. Yeah, I guess we should be a bit serious. I'm Dominic Kraemer in Amsterdam, and I'm speaking down the line to clown nose specialist Katy Lee in Paris. 

K: Hello.

D: Now we've got our clown noises out the way, maybe we should actually get on with the show.

K: Yeah, let's do that. What's coming up this week?

D: Well, today, the day this podcast comes out, the th of April, , is a big day of commemoration in Portugal. It is the th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, which was a left-leaning military coup that overthrew the Estado Novo government in Lisbon and led to huge changes in Portugal. Katy and Katz will be speaking to the author of a new book about this revolution, Alex Fernandes. It's a fascinating piece of history to look back on, not only because a song from the Eurovision Song Contest was central to the revolution, but also in light of the rise of the far-right in Europe today. That's coming up later on the show. But first, it's time for Good Week, Bad Week. 

BAD WEEK - 02’24”

D: Who's had a bad week, Katy?

K: It's been a bad week for young Europeans, because of a small-minded and, in my opinion, stupid decision by the UK government to reject a proposal by the European Commission to set up a scheme that would have allowed young EU nationals aged to , and young British nationals, to have mutual access to four-year visas. So that young Brits could come over here and live in continental Europe for four years, and vice versa. Before Brexit, of course, everyone could come and go between the two as they pleased, regardless of their age. And this deal would have restored the situation for a few years, and under certain conditions, to young people. The European Commission had suggested last week that the two sides could start negotiating a deal of this kind. But the idea has been very swiftly shot down by the UK, not only by the Conservative government, but also by the opposition Labour Party, who are fairly likely to take power in the UK in the next year.

D: Katy, didn't we create this podcast with the rule that we wouldn't talk about Brexit? 

K: I was wondering if it might finally be time, eight years after the referendum, to lift that policy. I mean, the reason we had that policy in the first place was because everyone talked about Brexit all the time. But I feel like certainly here within the EU, we don't really talk about Brexit at all anymore.

D: I guess I can agree to this. Permission granted. I am quite surprised that even the Labour Party in the UK, the opposition party, are not agreeing to this. Although actually, I'm not surprised. I know about UK politics. And I know that the Labour Party in the run up to the election are trying to present themselves as centrist as possible and trying to recapture the votes of people that also voted for Brexit. So I guess it kind of makes sense that they would say this. 

K: Well, that's exactly it. It seemed like a potentially obvious opportunity to point at the ruling Conservatives and say, look at these guys, they are so obsessed with keeping up the appearance that Brexit was the right decision, that they're prepared to shoot down a policy that would clearly help our economy at a time of quite severe labour shortages. I mean, that's what I would have said if I was the Labour leader, Keir Starmer. But I'm not Keir Starmer, I don't know if you’d noticed. Labour actually put out a quite bland statement, which said, ‘Labour has no plans for a youth mobility scheme. We have already suggested some tangible ways that we would look to to improve the relationship and deliver for British businesses and consumers.’ And it gave a couple of examples, including their proposal to make it easier for European musicians to come and tour in the UK.

D: Which is much needed. Don't sniff at that. It's been an absolute disaster for musicians, Brexit, especially for British musicians who – many of them, I know many of my colleagues are not being offered work in Europe anymore. And it's where the work is. 

K: I absolutely agree with you. It is a big deal. But it's also, you know, most people are not musicians. This was a huge extra group of people. Labour stressed that it had ‘red lines’ on Europe, and that improving the UK's relationship with the EU would have to be done within those red lines. And that expression, red lines, will be familiar to the Brits listening. It's one of those phrases that, as you say, Dominic, it signals that this is one of those examples of the British Labour Party feeling like it has to do this weird dance when it comes to Brexit and not openly saying that the whole thing was a mistake, because it's worried about alienating voters who still support Brexit ahead of these forthcoming elections. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has signalled that he will probably call the election sometime in the second half of this year. The number of UK voters who still think that Brexit was a good idea has been dropping over time, surprise, surprise. But recent opinion polls suggest it's still about a third of voters, which isn't nothing. Hence this reticence on Labour's part to say an emphatic yes to policy ideas that look too much like a return to life before Brexit. And apparently, this idea was one of them. The only party that did think these visas for young people were a good idea were the much smaller and more pro-European Liberal Democrats. They said this deal was a win-win and would have been, quote, ‘a much needed boost to our economy, especially hospitality and tourism. It would offer great new opportunities to young British people to work abroad. And it would be a crucial step towards fixing our broken relationship with Europe.’

D: What was the government's justification for rejecting this? 

K: They were pretty blunt. They issued a statement that said free movement within the EU was ended and there are no plans to introduce it. And this is extra stupid because just to be clear, this plan did not involve free movement. It would have given young people from both Britain and the EU four-year visas with fairly minimal conditions attached, but conditions nonetheless. And that's not at all the same thing as saying, ‘You can move to this country forever. No questions asked.’ That's what freedom of movement is. And the government either doesn't understand that or is pretending for political reasons not to understand that. As for why specifically the government has rejected this offer, it said it was open to these kind of schemes for young people, but it wants to do it on a country by country basis. The UK is reportedly interested in setting up some kind of young person swap between France and the UK, for example. And this has been very much a feature of UK immigration policy since Brexit, this idea of wanting to cherry-pick the countries that people come from, along with an obsession with demonising the very small number of asylum seekers coming on boats and sending them to Rwanda. But yeah, this principle of wanting to select the countries that the UK has a looser immigration relationship with, that also applies to young people. There is already a scheme that allows you to move to the UK for two years if you're aged to. But that scheme is only open to young people from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea. That experience is now out of bounds for most young Europeans. If you're Irish, you can come and go from the UK as you please. But if you're from anywhere else within the EU, your best bet of experiencing life in the UK for a bit is to go as a student. And that is now crazy expensive. Before Brexit, you would have paid the same as British students. You will now have to pay on average more than €25,000, per year. And that is just for your tuition fees. It doesn't cover the living costs. It's an absolutely astronomical sum.

D: It does seem a bit crazy that, well, both the government and the opposition party wouldn't want an injection of young people into the country, considering there's such a shortage of labour in the UK, right? 

K: Yeah. And the UK obviously hasn't been alone in suffering from labour shortages in recent years. This was a feature of quite a lot of European economies getting back on their feet after the pandemic. But there is data suggesting that the UK has been struggling to fill these labour shortages more than its EU neighbours. I'll post a study about that in the show notes. Brexit alone isn't responsible for these labour shortages, but it is a factor. And it's kind of obvious why. You know, like Brexit suddenly meant that it became a lot more difficult for huge numbers of workers with all kinds of skills and backgrounds to move to the UK and work there. If you look at the sectors where there are shortages of labour in the UK right now, it's things like the restaurant and food sector, hotels, healthcare. These are all sectors where before Brexit, if you were, you know, like a 22-year-old Italian or whatever, it was super common for you to come to the UK for a few years. You know, get a job in a bar or a cafe, practise your English and also have a lot of fun and date people and go on messy nights out, whatever. It is super hard to do that now. Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that both the UK Conservatives and the UK Labour Party have rejected, with very little ceremony, a proposal that would have offered a fairly obvious solution to some of the country's labour shortages. Not all of them, but some of them. And of course, it goes without saying, you know, this isn't just about economics. It's also a scheme that would have created a bunch of life experiences and funny, amazing memories for a whole generation of young people from both Britain and the EU. 

D: I like that you keep coming back to the, it's about going out on nights out and getting drunk. 

K: Why doesn't that argument get made more by politicians? But it's true, though, no? Wasn't that part of your experience as a young person moving to a different country? 

D: No comment. I think you're having cabin fever from being a new parent and like imagining that everyone else is out there having fun all the time. 

K: I actually don't really miss nights out. I do miss sleep.

D: I mean, both nights out and babies cause sleep deprivation. 

K: That's very true. Anyway, this thing would have led to a bunch of young people from both Britain and the EU being able to learn new skills. And yes, meet new people and go out and have fun. The great irony, of course, is that a lot of the people affected by this, on the British side at least, were too young to have a vote during the Brexit referendum in 2016. And I think if you ask them if they would like to be able to go and work in Barcelona for a few years, you'd have to look pretty hard for young people who wouldn't at least like to have the option to do that.

D: Yeah, I feel sad for them. 

K: But we're very old now, so at least it doesn't affect us. 

D: We're not very old, Katy. We're in our mid-thirties. 

K: We're just past the age bracket for this visa that isn't happening. Anyway, who has had a good week? 

D: Well, I'm sticking with sleep deprivation this week and giving Good Week to residents of Milan who just want to get a good night's sleep. Because their chances of getting a good night's sleep might be about to increase after the city authorities announced a proposal to ban the selling of takeaway food, alcohol and other drinks after 12.30 am during the week and after 1 am on the weekends. If the proposal goes into force, these new closing hours would go into effect next month and last until November. 

K: I mean, speaking as someone who goes to bed quite a lot earlier than I used to, now that I'm a parent, 12.30 am on weekdays and 1 am on the weekends seems kind of reasonable to me, but I'm probably going to get a bunch of complaints from late night people about that.

D: Well, yeah, I mean, it seems relatively reasonable to me, too, but it has been pretty controversial. I personally think people just need to learn to make themselves a toastie when they get home. But that's probably a criminal thing to say to a group of Italians, especially because there's this real culture around late night eating of ice cream in Milan. The people of Milan seem to be very passionate about their ice cream. The Secretary General for the Milan unit of the Italian Retailers Association gave a quote to the Observer newspaper saying, ‘What does the average Italian family do in the summer? They go for a stroll after dinner and get an ice cream. It's a classic tradition. And so it's clear that if you interfere with this type of cultural habit, people won't be happy.’

K: I do think it is one of Italy's great pleasures, actually, like, walking the streets on a kind of balmy summer evening, eating a very large and very delicious ice cream. I would agree with that.

D: Yeah, but I have a problem with this quote. And I know, on average, people living in the south of Europe eat dinner later than in the north. But is it really the case that people have dinner so late that they wouldn't be able to walk to the local gelateria before it closes at 12.30 a.m. during the week and 1 am at the weekend, and have their ice cream before bed? 

K: That is my question – who are the people ordering ice cream later than 12.30? Like, are they very night owl families? Or is ice cream like a drunk food in the same way that a kebab is drunk food in the UK? Are people eating drunk ice cream? 

D: I think it's the latter. I think at least the thing that the policy is trying to stop is people hanging around in the streets drunk after going to a bar or a club, eating their ice cream or getting a slice of pizza. 

K: Ice cream doesn't soak up alcohol very well! Choose a different food! 

D: I agree. It wouldn't be my drunken snack of choice, but pizza would. And it's worth pointing out that Milan is a very busy and bustling city, especially in the centre of town. There are a lot of bars and restaurants. In fact, according to iVisa, Milan is in the top of cities in Europe with the most bars per resident. That's 11 bars per 100,000 people. The new regulations would only apply to certain busy areas in the city. So you could still make it to an area that isn't included with the earlier closing hours. So I don't know how big a deal it is. And I think maybe it is really good news for all these people who can't sleep because of the noise of people out eating their pizzas and ice creams. 

K: I wonder if this will actually lead people to disperse though. Like, even if the ice cream shop is shut, you know how drunk people just have a habit of gathering aimlessly on the street? Like, won't they still do that?

D: Yeah, they might do. And I think sometimes giving them some food actually shuts them up and helps them soak up some of the alcohol. So yeah, there is no guarantee that the early closing hours will solve the problem of late night noise in the city. But I do think it's likely to at least improve the situation in some areas. According to Milan's Mayor Giuseppe Sala, late night noise is really a problem for local residents. He says he's received hundreds of letters from residents asking him to please do something to help quieten down the streets at night and allow them to get some much needed shut-eye. But we'll see if the city authorities actually end up putting this policy into action, because a similar policy was attempted back in 2012, that time with an even stricter ban. Then it was to close all ice cream venues at midnight. And back then, there was such a huge uproar from a movement that called itself Occupy Gelato, that the mayor at the time decided to scrap the policy altogether. This time, there is a lot of pushback again, but the current mayor seems to really want to pass something to help these poor insomniacs in the city. And because he is so keen to pass something he is willing to compromise. He's hinted that he might come up with some kind of an exemption for ice cream. We'll see what happens, but potentially a good week for residents of Milan who want a good night's sleep. Potentially not. 

* * *

K: We're doing something quite exciting weekend after next, listeners – we're going to attempt our first ever meet-up for Patreon supporters, in Amsterdam. 

D: Yay! We haven't told anyone about it yet, so we don't know if anyone's actually free. 

K: It would be really awkward if it's just you, me and Katz. But anyway, I'm coming to visit you both, so we thought, why not invite listeners along too? More the merrier. 

D: We'll be sending out the details to our Patreon supporters via the normal channels. But if you'd like to join us and you're in Amsterdam, then head to patreon.com/europeans podcast. Maybe this is the thing that's going to give you the push. 

K: And even if you don't live in Amsterdam, there are a range of like fun things that you can enjoy by signing up to support this podcast with a few bucks every month. And more importantly than anything else, you can definitely, definitely experience the warm glow of knowing that you have personally helped to keep this podcast in existence and helped to make pan-European independent journalism a thing. The latest supporters who we want to send a huge thank you to are Betka, Bettina and Kelly. 

D: Thank you all!

INTERVIEW WITH ALEX FERNANDES - 18’35”

K: Thursday, the day this podcast comes out, marks half a century exactly since the end of dictatorship in Portugal in 1974. And a really rare case in world history of a military coup leading to a lasting democracy. Portugal had been under the brutal rule of António de Oliveira Salazar since until he had a brain hemorrhage in 1968. But his regime lasted for another six years after that until April 25th, 1974. Daily life under the dictatorship was very frightening in many ways. There was super widespread censorship, really tight control on the media and the kinds of books that people could read. And just this incredibly repressive atmosphere of fear under the secret police. If you were suspected of being a regime opponent, you could just disappear and be tortured and murdered. And indeed, a lot of people did disappear. We don't exactly know how many. Women were also very much treated as second class citizens under the regime. That's actually one of the changes that followed the revolution, all women being able to vote for the first time. And all of this changed with the Carnation Revolution. Not overnight, of course, but it was pretty much a one day revolution, which is pretty crazy. In the run up to the th anniversary of this day, producer Katz has been reading a history of that day. Hi, Katz. 

KATZ LASZLO: Hi!

D: Hey! 

K: I'm embarrassed about how little I knew about the history of this revolution until now. 

KL: Yeah, I knew a little bit, but this book taught me so much more, especially about how much the colonial wars were a part of this revolution and the run up to it.

D: Why was it called the Carnation Revolution? 

K: I think it's because during the revolution itself, the civilians put carnations, so carnation flowers, in the ends of soldiers' rifles. Which is a very powerful symbol, actually. 

D: That is, yeah. 

KL: So we got to call up Alex Fernandes, the author of this book, and it's his first book as well. He works as a lighting engineer, which I think is really cool. And he was really determined to write this book because he didn't think there was a full enough history of it written in English in an accessible way. And I really enjoyed it. It was well worth the time. 

K: Katz and I spoke to Alex about the day that changed Portugal forever and what happened next. 

* * *

K: Hi, Alex!

ALEX FERNANDES: Hi! 

KL: Hi, how exciting to meet you! 

A: Nice to meet you both.

KL: I really enjoyed your book. Thank you for writing it. 

A: Oh, thank you for reading it. That's very kind. 

KL: I'm really curious, as someone who hasn't yet read the book, to know what made you want to write a book about the Carnation Revolution in the first place. Were your family involved in it? 

A: Not really. The closest that my family came to it was my grandfather had a banned book in his house, which is how the book starts, with him on the 25th of April of 1974 revealing this banned book that he'd kept hidden from his family, as if to say, ‘we're stepping forward into a new world.’ There's a couple of reasons why I decided to write the book. One was that I felt there was a lack of books that told the whole story of the Carnation Revolution. There were a lot of academic books about particular aspects of the revolutionary period, but there wasn't anything that took you from the context of the fascist New State all the way through to November the 25th, when the revolution, quote unquote, ended. 

KL: Yeah, and actually, the book starts immediately before the dictatorship began. It was an interesting moment in 1926. The country was sort of seeking a new stability and a form of democracy after the constitutional monarchy ended. Can you tell us a bit more about that? 

A: Short answer, no, because very little has actually been written about that period. It's sort of a black hole in Portuguese history, the so-called First Republic. It was a period of intense political strife. It was 16 years and I think 45 or 47 governments in that period, which is the sort of thing that The Europeans podcast would shout and scream over, I think, if they'd been around at the time. But yeah, it was complete chaos. And the military dictatorship that then became the Salazar regime, I think, was seen as sort of a period of sudden stability, because there weren't new governments being deposed or put into place over and over and over again. 

K: And the run up to the revolution in 1974 was marked by years of colonial wars. Can you tell us a little bit more about those wars? 

A: So it was a period of absolutely brutal warfare where the Portuguese regime was essentially trying to keep hold of its colonial holdings. And the war started in the north of Angola in 1961. It started a separate front in Guinea in and Mozambique in 64. And it just lasted 13 years. And I think there's an absolutely crazy statistic that by the time the revolution happened, a majority of fighting age men had been sent at some point to fight in the colonial war. It was an absolute bloodbath. It was a huge economic sink for the government. But it was also an ideological imperative. They had to keep hold of those colonies because it was part of their idea of what Portugal was. 

KL: The Carnation Revolution is often described as bloodless. But indeed, I read that in the run-up to those wars, 100,000 African lives were lost in those former colonies and 8,000, Portuguese lives. So I'm wondering what role those colonial wars played in the run-up to the Carnation Revolution? 

A: They were incredibly important, I think. Obviously the Carnation Revolution was a revolution that began as a military coup. And it was a military coup that was led by the junior officer class of the Portuguese military. That junior officer class, a large part of them were radicalised by having to, constantly being sent into the front. The staff officers of the Portuguese military were the ones who were doing two, three, four, five deployments into the African bush and watching as their subordinates and their friends were having their legs blown off, dying in brutal situations. A lot of them were also, in a sense, radicalised by the liberation armies that they were fighting against. One of the people that I write about in the book, Otelo Sarraiva de Carvalho, who was a leading figure in the revolution, writes in his memoirs that he read a book by one of the leaders of the Guinean liberation forces and he was completely moved by it and convinced that Portugal had no place in Africa, that they needed to decolonize, they needed to end the war, and the only way to end the war was through political means rather than military means. 

K: And when we talk about the day of the revolution itself, April 25th, 1974, that itself is one of the least violent and shortest revolutions in Europe, starting with a Eurovision song as the signal to start the coup. You've written an entire book about this day, but can you tell us briefly what happened starting on the night of the 24th into the following morning? 

A: Sure, yeah. So for some context for your listeners, there's a long conspiracy of the junior officer class within the Portuguese military that begins in the summer of 1973. And it leads up to April of 1974 with lots of chaos and people getting arrested and failed putches and things like that happening. But by the time we get to the evening of April the 24th, there's a full blown coup plan in place. And it begins with the playing of a pop song on Portuguese radio. The Lisbon Associated Broadcasters play the Portuguese Eurovision song entry, E Depois do Adeus by Paul de Carvalho, which came last that year in Eurovision. It was the year of Waterloo. So it's sort of unsurprising. I think it's a banging tune, actually. I'm really surprised that it came last, to be honest. But that was the signal. And they got that idea from a book called ‘The White Book on Regime Change in Chile’, which was edited by Pinochet. And so that was the first signal on the evening of the 24th of April. The second signal was the morning of the25 th, very early morning, 20 past midnight, which was Grândola Vila Morena by Zeca Afonso, who is a very popular left-wing folk singer who wrote a lot of songs that made the regime very angry and got sent to prison a lot. And the captains used that as a signal because they wanted to express their progressive intent for the country and the music that they chose. And then those two songs essentially triggered a military operation that dominated the country over the course of 12 hours, less than 24 hours. They dominated the government buildings in downtown Lisbon, as well as various strategic locations across the country. And it culminated in the siege of a military barracks in central Lisbon, where the prime minister was being held and eventually led to his surrender. And people say it was a bloodless day. That's not entirely true. The secret police began firing into the crowds that surrounded their building. And I believe it was, four people died, three civilians and one member of the Portuguese secret police. 

KL: I am wondering why this revolution was able to unfold with so little violence. 

A: I thnk if you think about the repressive state forces that would oppose this revolution, it was effectively, it was the army versus the army. And the army at this point was incredibly close with itself. Certainly the junior officer class was incredibly close among themselves. And some people were involved in the conspiracy, some people less so. But by the time it got to the day of the coup, even the people that were, quote unquote, on the side of the government, in many cases joined the revolutionaries or refused to engage them in combat. There's a very famous scene where Captain Salgueiro Maia is confronting a tank and a brigadier general orders the tank to open fire and the officer inside the tank refuses the order. That was obviously very lucky. But it's the sort of thing that made the revolution possible, was this complete giving up of the government forces saying, ‘We don't want to put up a fight against this.’ 

K: So this day unfolds and the dictatorship falls. How does Portugal go about building itself a democracy from scratch? 

A: Well, it's, you know, Marx said, history repeats itself first time as tragedy, second time as farce. And I think that we see a kind of reflection of the First Republic, I think, in this month period that follows the coup. Effectively, the regime has been toppled and Portugal goes into a period of intense political turmoil where there's various factions trying to gain control of the government. But at the same time, the repressive apparatus of the state has been or is in the process of being dismantled. And so we see a huge surge of working class power on the streets that includes factory and building occupations that includes occupation of agrarian land. By the time we get to March of 1975, there's been two attempted counter-coups from the right wing in Portugal, both of which have been pushed back. And the, at this point, incredibly left-wing government begins the process of mass nationalisations that turns Lisbon into the Red Commune of Lisbon, effectively, a lot of people refer to it as that. And the country is sort of split and on the brink of civil war, because the, Lisbon has been effectively occupied by a large swathe of working class uprisings. And the north of the country is not not so keen on that. And it's a long and complicated story that I can't really summarise. But you should read the book!

KL: You should! The Carnation Revolution not only transformed the way the Portuguese state was organised, it also led to the end of the colonial wars. And I'm wondering what the Carnation Revolution changed for those former colonies of Portugal. 

A: Well, the captains’ movement, they were led by the three D's, which were democratisation, decolonisation and development. And decolonisation was a big aspect of their political programme which they went into the coup with. And they were being pushed back against on that by General António Spínola, who was the president for a brief period after the revolution. But it was their key demand, effectively, was that the war should end and that the colonies should be granted their independence. And that went differently, depending on which colony you're looking at. So Portuguese Guinea, as it was known at the time, later Guinea-Bissau, was effectively already winning the war. And so when the revolution happened, there was a de facto ceasefire that was organised between the officers and the liberation movement, which effectively stopped the war there in its tracks. Angola, on the other hand, was a much more complicated situation. There was a lot of different factions scrambling for power in Angola. And when decolonisation effectively happened over a year later, it plunged Angola into a brutal civil war of its own, which was obviously incredibly sad. And so it was sort of a mixed bag, I think, the decolonisation process. 

K: Returning to Portugal itself, and also jumping forward to half a century, if I may, looking at more recent Portuguese politics, the penultimate Portuguese election was quite left-leaning, really, in terms of leaving the Socialists an absolute majority. More recently, in the most recent election just last month, we saw a huge surge in support for the far-right party, Chega. How does it feel for you to see such a surge in far-right support, just 50 years after the fall of Salazar's regime?

A: Well, it makes me very sad. And I write about it in the epilogue of the book. Obviously, if I'd written the book now, rather than a year ago when it was finished, the epilogue would be different and slightly more pessimistic. But when I wrote that epilogue, Chega had a very small group of members of the Portuguese Assembly. And now they have 50. And it's almost like a joke that it was 50 years after the revolution, we have 50 far-right members of parliament. It's sad, but I don't think it's a sign of a trend. I think when you had Aitor Hernándeztalking about the election a few weeks ago, he made the point that it was the Portuguese people expressing their frustration with the main political parties. And I think that is, to a sense, true. I also think that there is an undercurrent of the far-right in Portugal that has been, I guess, hidden behind the, quote unquote, respectability of major political parties in the past, like the Christian Democrats, which were one of the parties that came out of the revolution. I think a lot of the opinions expressed by the far-right parties are not new they are just more open in politics. And I think it's expressing a shift to the right that is happening across Europe and unfortunately, across the rest of the world. And I don't really know what to do about that, depressingly. But I am optimistic that these 50 members of parliament is an upper limit to the number of members of the far-right that will be elected in Portugal. 

* * *

KL: One of the things that really struck me reading Alex's book was just how young a lot of these people were, and like the gumption of the revolutionary soldiers who just like walked up to these incredibly powerful people and said, you know, ‘Listen, we're taking over the country and it's really not in your interest to use violence.’ And sometimes that goes very smoothly and sometimes there are just really hilariously awkward scenes where it doesn't quite work, or like, people fall out of buses. And obviously, it's not just funny. It was a very serious revolution. But I really enjoyed those scenes as well. It made it all very human.

K: I can't wait to read this book. It is called ‘The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell’. And it is out now. Alex, I believe is out on the streets of Lisbon today with the many, many people celebrating 50 years since the revolution. So very happy celebrating to all of you who are there.

D: I feel like we should close off this segment with our old Commemoration jingle that our jingle man and superstar Jim Barne made for us years ago when I thought of a new segment called Commemoration Corner, which I then completely abandoned. Finally, we've got a moment to use it.

KL: Yeah, that is the real story!

INSPIRATION STATION: 35’57”

D: Welcome to the Inspiration Station, where this week, following on from the interview, we're going to be sharing exclusively Portuguese cultural recommendations. What have you been enjoying, Katy?

K: My offering this week is the two songs you just heard about in the interview, the two songs that signalled the start of the revolution, starting with Portugal's 1974 Eurovision entry, E Depois do Adeus, which means ‘And After the Goodbye’. It was performed by Paulo de Carvalho. And it did indeed come joint last in that year's song contest. And as Alex said, that is not deserved. It's a good song. It just happened to be going up against ABBA that year. No one else stood a chance.

D: Yeah, but I mean, ABBA came first and they came last. There are places in between, right? 

K: Yes… I think that's uncharitable of you, Dominic. It's a good song.

D: No, but I actually think there's a long history of great songs coming close to the bottom of the Eurovision Song Contest. So no, I take that back.

K: He was robbed.

[SOUND CLIP]

K: The second song played on the radio just after midnight was this song by Zeca Afonso, Grândola, Vila Morena. This song is an anthem to anti-fascism. And actually, Alex has an article in last weekend's Observer newspaper in the UK about the music of the revolution. And he writes about how Zeca Afonso was this firebrand leftist activist singer, so it made sense to have one of his songs signal the revolution. But loads of his songs were banned. This one had managed to evade the censors, even though its lyrics are all about the struggle for liberation. So at this very dicey moment for the person at the Lisbon broadcaster, this song was a good option. And lo and behold, it helped to make history.

[SOUND CLIP]

These songs made me wonder about what I would choose to play on the radio to signal the start of a revolution. What would you go for?

D: Oh, I haven't had any time to think about that. I think I'd probably play like a RuPaul song or something just to like, get everyone feeling sassy.

K: Set the tone for your new dictatorship.

D: What, RuPaul? Oh yeah, RuPaul is definitely a dictator of his empire.

K: No, I meant you.

D: Oh, me. Oh, it's my dictatorship. Oh yeah, still RuPaul. 

K: Still RuPaul.

D: What about you?

K: I'd probably go for our theme music, just because people would definitely know something weird was going on if that came on the radio.

D: Oh yeah, good idea. And yeah, it's got a long history of being used as a political statement, Ode to Joy.

K: Very true. Anyway, sticking with Portugal, what other Portuguese offerings have we got this week? 

D: Well, I'm actually calling on producer Wojciech Oleksiak for the other Portuguese recommendation of this segment today. Wojciech and I are both huge mega fans of the Portuguese singer and songwriter Maro. I actually discovered her via Eurovision initially a few years ago. Anyway, he got to see her live last week, so I asked him to tell us how it was.

Here's Wojciech. 

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK: Yeah, so last week I drove to Poznań, and that is a three hour drive one way from where I live, and I went there only to see Maro performing live.

D: That's dedication.

W: We've spoken about Maro quite a few times, so you maybe know who she is, but if you don't, she's a singer that blends traditional Portuguese guitar music (10:05) with her deep, deep knowledge and understanding of contemporary pop music. 

[SOUND CLIP] 

W: Now, currently she's on tour with two absolutely amazing musicians from her home country. These are Pau Figueres and Darío Barroso, and my advice is look up her tour dates now, because every show she announces is very quickly sold out, and you really don't want to miss it. What really made me laugh was that Maro seemed to have been actually shocked that people can sing in perfect harmonies or odd metres without any prep, and she kept asking, does everybody sing like that in Poland? What are you people? And the funny secret to that was that in the line in front of the club, I met at least two dozens of fellow musicians, most of them had front row seats, so in fact, she had a hundred percent professional backing vocals group singing with her all night long, and she really enjoyed it.

D: I bet.

W: It was really funny, but also it added a bit more charm to this already charm overloaded evening. Anyway, the second leg of the tour is coming this autumn. Make sure you don't miss it.

D: Sadly, I am going to miss it because it's sold out in Amsterdam. It was sold out within hours of tickets going on sale, and I was not quick enough.

K: Oh, Paris is sold out too. Boo.

D: Why are we even talking about her? She doesn't need any publicity.

K: But definitely a Portuguese artist worth celebrating, especially this week.

D: Yes.

HAPPY ENDING - 12’02”

D: For this week's happy ending, I have happy news for nature. Nature is going to start receiving royalties for all its sounds that have been used by artists in pop songs.

K: Straight into its bank account? What?

D: It's an initiative called Sounds Right, and it's organised by the Museum for the United Nations, and it actually seriously means that there are now tracks on your streaming platform of choicethat credit, quote unquote, nature as one of the featured artists on the track. And now when artists upload their tracks to a streaming service, they can tick a box that says that nature is one of the artists, and a percentage of the royalties will go to a conservation fund that will support projects that are protecting precious and precarious ecosystems.

K: So I guess it's things like the song that comes to mind is ‘Blackbird’ by the Beatles.

D: Yeah, of course.

K: Does the Blackbird from that song get royalties?

D: Oh, if only. I don't think the UN would say no if Paul McCartney decided he wanted to donate some of Blackbird's future streaming royalties to nature, especially now Beyonce's covered it. But it's mainly for newly released songs. When launching the scheme last week, various artists released songs featuring nature sounds in them. I'll link to the official Spotify playlist called ‘Featuring Nature’ in the show notes of this episode. And you could check out the new song from Norwegian artist Aurora featuring nature sounds from the forests in her home country. And actually, in answer to your question about whether it counts for a song like ‘Blackbird’, it does count for an old song. There's a re-release of the David Bowie song ‘Get Real’, remixed by Brian Eno. And Eno has rather bizarrely added the noises of wild pigs, rooks and hyenas. 

K: That's such a specific menagerie.

D: As far as I understand, this is not an April Fool's story. But I do find it very charming. There are also playlists of just pure nature sounds, which is actually really nice to have on in the background whilst working. And you can feel good about it, too, because by streaming those tracks, you're helping to raise money for conservation projects. I really enjoyed listening to the Scottish Seas Serenade and the Colombian Rainforest album. Anyway, it might all sound a bit gimmicky to you. But it's a gimmick that I find very charming. It's predicted that it will raise almost €40 million and engage 600 million people around the planet.

K: Wow. I love this!

D: Me too. 

* * *

K: We are away next week, listeners, working on some very interesting episodes that we have coming up and also, in my case, visiting you, Dominic, and hopefully catching some of the podcast supporters while we're there.

D: Yes, very much looking forward to it. Hope everyone doesn't miss us too much. If you do, head to Instagram or Twitter or Mastodon or Blue Sky. 

K: Not Blue Sky!

D: I posted on it a few times this week.

K: Did you? Well done. And Threads.

D: And Threads.

K: Our scattergun approach to all of the various social networks that are sort of around at the moment continues. You'll find the links to all of those things right there on the screen.

D: This week's episode was produced by Katy Lee. Thank you, Katy.

K: You're welcome. See you in two weeks, everyone.

D: Adeus.

K: Até a próxima.