Karel Kryl

Karel Kryl (12 April 1944 – 3 March 1994) was a Czechoslovak poet, singer-songwriter and author of many hit protest songs in which he explicitly criticized the Communist (and later also the post-communist) regimes in his home country for their hypocrisy and inhumanity.

The lyrics of Kryl's songs are highly poetic and sophisticated, with perfect rhyming and a frequent use of metaphors and historical allusions. The sparse sounds of his guitar served to underscore the natural flow of the lyrics themselves. Kryl has been compared with the young Bob Dylan, because of the complexity of his lyrics, his accompaniment by a single acoustic guitar, and his great popularity.

Having lived for twenty years in forced exile, he was initially keen on the collapse of communism in his country, but very quickly he became bitterly and uncompromisingly critical of the new regime and its protagonists as well, including Václav Havel, and especially of those who were responsible for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992. Provided by Wikipedia