1077 Spanish Song Titles
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 12:32:46 -0800
From: Rick FromPdx <bugs1959bunny@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Spanish Song Titles
OK, I admit it. I made it through a US public high school w/o taking a foreign language. The following is probably obvious to lots of folks on this list, but sure wasn't to me. I listen to a CD of Color Tango almost every day, cuz I love the music & the way the instruments sound. A friend of mine keeps a Spanish-English dictionary next to his PC & I got in the habit too.
"Mariposa" means butterfly. The next time I listened to the song, I imagined/heard it in a way I never have before. There's a small world inside that song, that I now can see. I looked up a couple other words, I hope I get this right:
"Gallo Ciego" = blind rooster
"Luciernaga" = glow worm
"Mala Juna" = bad meeting (??not sure about this one??)
Rick
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 15:13:44 -0900
From: Dan Boccia <redfox@ALASKA.NET>
Subject: Re: Spanish Song Titles, etc.
Trying to understand what the songs are about is a great idea, but those
of us who aren't native latinos best consult someone who is early in the
process!! I've spent dozens of hours pouring over lyrics and song
titles with native latinos, even with native Portenos, and they have
trouble navigating through all the slang, and a few songs are still left
not entirely answered.
> "Mariposa" means butterfly. The next time I listened to the song, I
imagined/heard it
> in a way I never have before. There's a small world inside that song,
that I now can
> see.
Sure, mariposa CAN mean butterfly, but in this case it's talking about a
deceitful and wholly disrespectful woman who uses her beauty to gain the
pleasures of men, then she runs off to the next one, etc. (or any other
variation of a similar theme, basically a "tramp")....... now that's a
different dance altogether......
> "Gallo Ciego" = blind rooster
More like "stoned" or "wasted" Dude, or someone who is "stoned blind".
Basically someone who has OD'd on drugs and/or alcohol and is so wasted
they can't see straight. Let's not forget the fact that the folks who
wrote and played a lot of this music were some hard-core partying
animals, up all night, sleeping during the day and all that. Drugs and
alcohol flowed freely and the party was basically non-stop.
Etc., etc.
Once you get into the lyrics and the meanings of the songs, you begin to
appreciate songs like "El Cuarteador", or "Los Ejes de Mi Carreta" that
have a very light and almost humorous air to them, not dealing with the
heavy issues of life. That said, knowing something about the lyrics to
the really Porteno songs like "A Quien Le Puede Importar", "Farol", "En
Un Beso....La Vida", etc. can help any dancer gain insight to why tango
is such an internal, soulful, and thoughtful dance where emotions are
laid out raw, and why some say you have to have suffered to dance tango
well or have any hope of understanding it. I love it.
I still remember watching a couple of Argentines chuckle as one couple
went bounding gleefully across the floor, all smiles and upbeat to
"Verdemar", which is a wholly thoughtful song, both in it's arrangement
(the Di Sarli/Rufino version) and the fact that it's dealing with
someone's lover who has just drowned - describing the colorless lips,
etc. This song is particularly gripping to me having nearly drowned
myself a few times, and the imagery is so strong to me that I sometimes
choose to sit it out, and when I do dance, my partners usually get the
feeling that the song has deep meaning to me.
It's not just the songs with lyrics, the instrumentals aren't free from
this, as in the examples of "La Mariposa or "Gallo Ciego", whose
imageries leave a veil over the beautiful instrumentation.
Nothing against any of these songs, they are all good, but I hope I
don't see a bunch of people flitting around like gay butterflies in the
next milonga....
Dan
