“Quan surts per fer el viatge cap a Ítaca, has de pregar que el camí sigui llarg.”
That’s how the song opens: Lluís Llach setting to music Ithaka, the poem by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, in Catalan, partly from Carles Riba’s translation. The poem takes Odysseus’ trip home from The Odyssey and turns it around: don’t hurry to reach Ithaka. The journey is the point; Ithaka is only what gave you the reason to set out. If you find it poor when you get there, it didn’t fool you: by then you’ll have understood what Ithakas are for.
The album came out in 1975, months before Franco died, recorded between Paris and Barcelona with jazz musicians. The title song is a suite of more than a quarter of an hour that fills the first side, among the most ambitious pieces ever written in Catalan song. In those years, singing that freedom is a road and not a place wasn’t just poetry.
https://www.elnacional.cat/es/cultura/50-anos-largo-viaje-hacia-itaca_1504501_102.html