Rock band criticises Polish opposition for its using anti-communist anthem at rally

Polish rock band Lombard has accused the country’s main opposition party, Civic Platform (PO), used one of its songs – a 1980s hit penned as a protest against the communist regime – without permission.

PO’s secretary general notes that the party paid for the legal rights to play the song, but says they probably will not use it anymore if the band does not want them to.

The song in question is Przeżyj to sam (Experience it yourself), which was released in 1982 during the period of brutal martial law imposed by Poland’s communist regime. Its lyrics are a rallying call for people not to passively accept the situation but instead to join those fighting against it:

Someone else changes the world for you
He sticks his neck out, he raises a shout
And you stay away because it’s better that way
And if anything happens, you lose nothing

“I knew I could go to jail for this song,” its co-author, the late Andrzej Sobczak, once told Malemen magazine.

He and his bandmates were amazed when the work was played on state radio. It was quickly removed from the air by censors (who reportedly also destroyed physical copies of the song) and barred from the charts, but its brief exposure helped it become an anthem for opponents of the regime.

Last weekend, PO – which has often likened the struggle to remove the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party from power to the fight against communism in the 1980s – played Przeżyj to sam during a rally of thousands of its supporters in the city of Wrocław, many of whom sang along.

However, soon afterwards Lombard released a statement to local news portal TuWrocław saying that it “did not and does not consent to the use of the work in the election campaign of any political party”.

The band’s frontman, Grzegorz Stróżak, who co-authored Przeżyj to sam along with Sobczak, also confirmed that he had not given consent for its use. “You must be joking!” he told TuWrocław. “We didn’t agree to that. The piece was played without my knowledge or consent.”

This morning, Marcin Kierwiński, PO’s secretary general, was asked about the controversy during an interview with Radio Zet. “We spoke with our lawyers,” he said. “From the formal and legal perspective, we bought the rights [to use the song]. OK, if the band doesn’t agree then we probably won’t use it.”

In 2015 a similar situation arose when the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD), a group formed to protest against the then recently formed PiS government, also played Przeżyj to sam at one of its demonstrations.

The band then also expressed “outrage” at the use of their song, especially as it was done around the time of the anniversary of the introduction of martial law on 13 December 1981.

“We will not allow our work to be used to set Poles against one another, to fuel conflicts, to insult and slander, especially as part of political games,” they wrote in a statement. “Let’s look for what unites us, not divides us!”

However, a former member of the band, Małgorzata Ostrowska, notes that, since her departure, Lombard – whose lineup has changed a number of times over the decades – has performed at PiS events and that Stróżak has not hidden his sympathies for the party.

Meanwhile, Paweł Sobczak, the son of Przeżyj to sam co-author Andrzej, told news website Onet in 2015 that his father – who died in 2011 – “did not support PiS and…would be happy to see that this song is used at a KOD demonstration”.

Main image credit: Lombard/Facebook

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.