Getting close to a hundred fifty entries, and I’m only just posting this now?
Over twenty years have passed since the album ‘Por la Vida’ blew up my expectations all over again. I already was passionately keen on Andean folk music, but several songs from Jayac grabbed me like nothing else had. Their other songs were in Spanish, so there was more of my intellect and individual memory involved in the listening, but this one awakened something older and maybe a little wilder. If you’re like me you’ll want to crank up the volume and scare up all the pigeons in the vicinity. Who says a bird plough is an undesirable impact? I might not have the condor in my blood, but I definitely have some accipiters.
‘Didn’t It Rain?’ – Sister Rosetta Tharpe
I once read that Satan sneaks into our hearts and minds via rock and roll music and the insidious catchiness of backbeat music. If so, then surely Sister Rosetta Tharpe may have some rock ‘splainin to do up yonder. After all, she inspired Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Bob Dylan, among others. Maybe my soul is already lone gone, but I doubt the tale about the deerty beats and the cosmic bad dude. As I’ve gotten to know a bunch of gay, lesbian and other folks with less hated orientations than mine, I’ve begun to think that the thing that’s truly out of order is the condemnation of self and others, particularly where shared pleasures like music and romance are concerned. Enjoy this clip of her concert by the tracks on a rainy day in Chorltonville, England
‘Cantar del Alma’ – San Juan de la Cruz
This poem, also known as ‘Noche Oscura’ or by its refrain, ‘Aunque es de noche’, is an old one from Spain. Be not impatient with the austerity of the music here, my drama-loving friends. This melody was written a century ago by Federico Mompou of Barcelona, and is much the way I imagine the canonized 16th century author may have wished to hear it, serene and pious. Don’t worry; we’ll fix that soon enough.
The poem speaks of a fountain, and from various websites reading about him I have inferred that the poem alludes to John of the Cross’s devotional frame of reference which included the ‘fountain of Elijah’ on Mount Carmel, though it’s clearly also about the origins of all life.
The Catholic church declared him a saint, and his suffering was in- and poetry arose out of time spent imprisoned by people unhappy with the reforms he worked to bring about in the Carmelite monastic order.
[translated segment:]
“…I don’t know its origin, for it has none,
Yet I know that every origin comes from it,
Even though it is by night.
I know there can be nothing more beautiful,
And that heaven and earth drink from it,
Even though it is by night,
Even though it is by night,
Even though it is by night.
I know that no ground for that spring can be found,
And that no man can wade across it,
Even though it is by night.
Its luminosity can never be darkened,
And all light comes from it,
Even though it is by night.
And its currents are so fast-flowing
That they flow through heavens, hells, and people,
Even though it is by night,
Even though it is by night,
Even though it is by night.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/aunque-es-de-noche-even-though-it-night.html
Throwing propriety and austerity to the four winds; Enter the cantaor(a), the flamenco singer. While her official music video offers quite a punch, the Spanish pop/folk fusion artist Rosalía’s live performances are even better. In the following one her accompanist Raül Refree shines at times, and at others, for me, loses a bit of the feeling when his strumming sounds more generic and stilted, departing from the ornamentation and subtlety I expect from Spanish guitar. (3:33 timestamp)
While in their concert in the monastery Veruela (not linked) he switches at one point to strumming on the backbeat instead of the downbeat giving it a curious rock’n’roll feel that I didn’t appreciate with this song, in the next video Raül carried that portion near the end a little more subtly, and Rosalía plays games with the microphone as well as her voice to achieve a dynamic volume control that left people swearing and crossing themselves as the two artists fell silent.
Moving on from Rosalía we have one of her fans from Venezuela, singing with a looping machine to his own exciting back track of palmas and harmonies. He admits to not being a cantaor of flamenco, and for a fan video, this is inspiring:
Now, before I offer you my two very favorite versions discovered in all my wanderings across Youtube’s landscape, marked as the terrain is by invisible ‘do not detour’ signs in the all-restricting algorithmic undercurrent, it is required to share one from Enrique Morente, whom many commenters point to as the ‘definitive’ singer of this poem. There is an older studio recording, but I like the collaboration he did more recently with a Bulgarian Voices choir:
Now for a video uploaded 8 years ago, before Rosalía recorded her first rendition, as far as I know. This is one of my two faves and it anticipates significantly the dramatic style she employs:
And finally, we come to the child of Enrique Morente, Kiki Morente, possessed of several voices in one. While Johnny boy of Yepes might not approve of such emotional wallowings, might shake his harp at us while looking down from his cloud, this flamenco gitano approach to his poem clearly has won the vote of the masses:
Ok, and just in case you’re trying to sleep, here’s another reserved setting of Mompou’s melody. You know that old joke about what you call a Latino with his hands tied behind him… Mute… well just compare the hand movements of Marisa Martins to those of Rosalía!
‘Too Young’ – Sidney Lippman and Sylvia Dee
Nat King Cole, one of the great crooners undoubtedly, and such a beautiful man, counted this song among his favorites of his recording career. It soared to the top of the charts when it was first released a decade earlier, but my guess is that its popularity wasn’t a significant factor in why he liked it. Just look at that smile.
Wikipedia itself hasn’t reversed or apologized for its discriminatory policies and willfully ignorant hubris about young people and love, but the internet editors not barred (as I am) from contributing there have written an excellent article on this song:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Young_(Sidney_Lippman_and_Sylvia_Dee_song)
Besides King Cole, there were other kings who recorded it:
Johnny Mathis clenched his jaw when singing this, which I could hear in parts and it bothered me, but it’s still nice overall, and the following video includes Portuguese subtitles so I’m tossing it into the mix:
Now, in case you’ve been hankering for that good old scratchy vinyl ASMR, we have an instrumental medley starting with ‘Too Young’ and followed by two other solo pedo–erm–piano numbers arranged for that quiet date-night-in foxtrot dance in your kitchen and foyer:
…ok, cut. Technical difficulties (Google Fu breakdown) prevent us from bringing you Semprini’s recordings from a London studio in 1951.
But there is a gorgeous rendition from a Brazilian with a bit of this flair, as he seems to have added a scratch track to the background to give it that old-timey record sound:
‘No Soy de Aquí, Ni Soy de Allá’ – Fecundo Cabral
Here’s the glorious liquid poetry of Fecundo Cabral himself, on stage:
…no vine a explicar al mundo, solo lo vine a tocar
…I didn’t come to explain to the world, I only came to touch (or ‘play’ in the sense of music) it.
‘No Volveré’ – Gipsy Kings
The lyrics and translation in this [EDIT: link broken. There are more up-to-date lyrics videos since this was posted.] video are not entirely accurate, but they give the idea. The Spanish from Genius.com is better but still fails to offer what the last line of the opening stanza says, instead just giving the version sung in the next refrain, ‘Que la ya veo’. Some people write ‘Que nadie hoy’ but that doesn’t sound right either.
Also they give ‘cuentaré’ as the standardized Spanish ‘contaré’. Again, it may be that Nicolas sometimes says ‘Vuelves’ instead of ‘Vuelve’, though I’m not sure of this.
Amor mío
Amor mío, por favor, tú no te vas
Yo contaré a las horas
Que la ya veo
Amor mío
Amor mío, por favor, tú no te vas
Yo contaré a las horas
Que la ya veo
Vuelve
No volveré, no volveré, no volveré
No quiere recordar
No quiere recordar
Vuelve
No volveré, no volveré, no volveré
No quiere recordar
No quiere recordar
[Instrumental]
Vuelve
No volveré, no volveré, no volveré
No quiere recordar
No quiere recordar
Vuelve
No volveré, no volveré, no volveré
No quiere recordar
No quiere recordar
[Outro]
Lo lao
Lo lai lo lai, lo lai, lo lai
Lo lai, lo lai lo
Lai lai lo lai, lo lao
Lai lai lo lai, lo lao
Lo lao
Lo lai lo lai, lo lai, lo lai
Lo lai, lo lai lo
Lai lai lo lai, lo lao
Lai lai lo lai, lo lao
My love, my love please don’t go away! I will count the hours until I see her. My love, my love please don’t go away! I will count the hours until I see her. Come back! I will not return, I will not return… She doesn’t want to remember, she doesn’t want to remember. Come back! I will not return, I will not return… She doesn’t want to remember, She doesn’t want to remember. [Note that in Spanish the third person verb ‘quiere’ doesn’t specify whether it refers to he, she, or it, and there’s no pronoun in that portion to clarify. I put ‘she’ in there to fit the cultural context and the singer’s being male, but this is undefined. Whichever it is, it’s not ‘i’ as given by the uploader. That would be ‘quiero’ but it’s clearly ‘quiere’.]
While many sites include inaccurate renderings of this song’s meanings (the most common being this one just mentioned ‘I don’t want to remember’) there’s a nice write-up at a site I just found:
https://www.songtell.com/gipsy-kings/no-volver
While it doesn’t add much to a simple translation, it does help clarify the person, the grammar. It is the beloved who doesn’t want to remember, and who says they won’t come back, while the singer is voicing the plea. I wonder if I’m correct in thinking this is unusual in music, but quite common in visual arts, to title a work from the perspective of its subject, rather than that of the artist. Here it is, ‘No volveré’ being the words of the beloved, not of the singer.
Their site has a great little write-up from about seven years ago, when their album ‘Savor Flamenco’ was released.
Nicolas Reyes still singing today’s song in June of 2023, some 25 years after the publication of the album on which it first appeared:
This cover caught my attention for the slightly different feeling it gave me, of acceptance rather than agony. I wish the audio didn’t cut short the resonance of the final note.
Finally I’ll offer one more link to get all you guitar dreamers leaping off the couch to grab the neck of the nearest curvaceous thing:
‘Chaudhary’ – Amit Trivedi ft. Mame Khan
Por mi audiencia Hispano-parlante, quiero lanzarme en su idioma con esta entrada del blog.
La letra de esta canción no se está traduciendo bien por via algorítmica. Google Translate lo identifica como Gujarati, y DeepL dice Estonio, pero ninguno de los dos entrega nada. Me parece que DeepL está borracho.
Chaudhary
Lukk – chipp na javo ji, manney deed karavo ji
Are kyun tarsavey ho, manney sakal dikhavo ji
Thaari saraarat sabb jaanu main chaudhari
Mahaarey se levo na pangaaji main kehan lagi
Mahaarey hivdhey mein jaagi dhaunkani
Rae chandaa main thaari chandni
Maney daaman mein baandhi khusi
Rae jhoom, jhoom, Jhoom jhoom baa jhoom!
Moh re liya tanney aesa khela daav
Khaavey hichkoley mahaarey mann ki naav
Moh re liya tanney aesa khela daav
Khaavey hichkoley mahaarey mann ki naav
Thaari saraarat sabb jaanu main chaudhari
Mahaarey se levo na panga ji main kehan lagi
Mahaarey hivdhey mein jaagi dhaunkani
Thaari saraarat sabb jaanu main chaudhari
Mahaarey se levo na panga ji main kehan lagi
Mahaarey hivdhey mein jaagi dhaunkani
Rae chandaa main thaari chandni
Maney daaman mein baandhi khusi
Rae jhoom, jhoom, Jhoom jhoom baa jhoom!
Daal – bhaati khale aakey mahaarey gaanv
Ghannaa ghera dala thara chokhaa chadhaa chaav
Thaari saraarat sabb jaanu main chaudhari
Mahaarey se levo na panga ji main kehan lagi
Mahaarey hivdhey mein jaagi dhaunkani
Re chandaa main thaari chandni
Maney daaman mein baandhi khusi
Rae jhoom, jhoom, Jhoom jhoom baa jhoom!
https://www.lyricsochords.com/Chaudhary-Lyrics-Tab-Mame-Khan-1649410
Ahora bien, si no logramos encontrar una traducción, por lo menos podemos leer comentarios y descripciones, generalmente en Inglés o Hindi. Aquí viene la descripción en el video en MTV:
“In a world where most love stories are about kids in love, this song is different. It’s about a man’s undying love towards a young girl.
“The village Choudhry is a powerful, restrained and successful man who falls in love with a young girl. This song teases those feelings. The feeling of helplessness, of giving into an emotion so strong, that one cannot even dream of fighting it! The lyrics in the song perfectly depict the difference in the lovers, where he is calm & restrained with a strong sense of propriety while she is young, enthusiastic & impulsive. Accompanied by the traditional khartal and sarangi, fused with drums and guitars, this is a completely new take on the Rajasthani folk music.”
Espera–espera–espera; “kids in love?” En verdad quieren decirnos que el mundo en que nos encontremos es un mundo de cuentos de amores entre niños? Bueno, ahora ya tarde me lo dicen. Caramba. Y yo que pensé que era yo rebelde por amar demasiado chamaco.
Ahh, ya lo entiendo. A lo mejor quiere decir que los cuentos de amor tienden ser cuentos de dos inmaduros. En eso estoy de acuerdo. Entonces aquí tenemos una canción que cuenta de un amor entre un adulto exitoso, culto, calmado, auto-restringido, y una jovencita impulsiva y llena de entusiasma.
Cuarenta y veinte es un tema, pero no se trata de números. Por eso la peque bailando en el primer enlace igual como las chamacas gritandole a Jose Jose en sus conciertos no tuviera que tener todavía sus veinte.
‘Farewell’ – Talisk
Thinking of the pain of partings without losing oneself in the pain, it’s possible to feel quite a thrill at the unknown. From Cape Verdean Morna with its wistful tenderness to this piece with its moments of driving energy, I’ve found more than a little hope in music crafted in loss. I wonder what was the story behind this production … Perhaps a tribute to a fallen musician? I hope they hold a wake for me, rather than a dark and dismal send-off.
‘Dertli Dolap’ – Özgür Baba
‘An Páistín Fionn’ – traditional?
https://thesession.org/tunes/5675
At https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/songs/cmc/paistin_fionn_pmcnamara.htm there is an English version with lyrics written out.
I have nothing to add. Read the above series of comments at ‘the session’ if you want to see how people listening to and playing energetic hornpipes and reels come around to mentioning the slow air I fell in love with through Danú’s recording.
Here are Máire Ó Beaglaoich and Séamus Ó Beaglaoich:
And here’s Ciarán O Gealbháin singing on the Danú album, although I have my doubts about the spelling by what appears to be a YouTube bot uploader:
¿Qué pedo? 