The poems Escena del teniente coronel de la Guardia Civil (Scene of the Lieutenant Colonel of the Civil Guard) and the Canción del gitano apaleado (Song of the Beaten Gypsy) emanae from real situations. In Granada, conflicts between Gypsies and Civil Guard (Spanish Police) were frequent. In November 1919, Lorca, accompanied by Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, witnessed one of these clashes in the center of the city and was very shocked.
These poems starring gypsies and the Civil Guard would later bring him some problems with the Civil Guard, even being denounced years later by a stranger and having to answer and explain his poems before a judge.
He also knew the fear and omniscient power that the guards exercised in the villages when he visited the Alpujarra in 1927 after accompanying his mother to enjoy the curative waters at the Lanjarón spa.