25.10.11

GLORIA ESTEFAN, “NO PRETENDO”

2nd August, 1997


Probably the most telling indication of my taste-slash-white-boy-assumptions-about-"real"-Latin-music is the reaction I'm having to this run of songs compared to the run that immediately preceded it. Enrique Iglesias and Marco Antonio Solís, much as I've liked individual songs of theirs, are wearying in romántico ballad after romántico ballad slicked up with mid-90s adult-contemporary pop production. The ranchero classicism of Juan Gabriel/Rocío Dúrcal and the countryfied corridos of Los Tigres del Norte, leaning as they did on traditional Mexican sounds, the Latin American version of "roots" music like the blues, country and gospel, were much more agreeable to my classicist's ears. Which may be indication of an "authenticity"-driven double standard applied to Latin music — after all, in Anglophone music of the period, I like the Cardigans way more than, say, Keb' Mo' — or maybe it's just a numbers game. If it were one or two Enriques to every six or seven Tigres, I might be feeling the exact opposite.

I bring all this up because this is the third Latin-traditionalist song in a row that I'm really loving; though the traditionalism here isn't Mexican but Cuban, even Spanish (the flowing flamenco-like guitar lines), and I think I even hear Peruvian huayño (cf. "El Condor Pasa") in the shuffling rhythm. But I'm no expert, as the musicologists falling over themselves laughing at my disorderly tags can attest. And faithful traditionalism would surely be pointless without Estefan's effortless melodicism and Kike Santander's classic songwriting.

"No Pretendo" can be translated several different ways, from the obvious "I don't pretend" to "I'm not trying" to "I don't mean" — either way, the phrase ends most frequently with "ser tu dueña" (be your lady, in the aristocratic as well as the lover sense) and "hacerte mío" (make you mine), and the repeated disclaimers have the effect of enforcing humility: after saying at great length what she doesn't mean to be, when she says what she does want to be it's "el mano que se llene de quebranto, ser un poco el remanso donde muere el desengaño" (the hand filled with broken dreams, a bit of an oasis where disappointments die).

This is practically Victorian — the "ministering angel thou" version of womanhood, rejecting any stronger moral or emotional hold on her man — but the complexity and the sheer poetry of the full lyric make it go down easier, as does Estefan's eternally warm voice, pitched at just the right level of desperation to make the sentiment believable. And listen to the guitars: they're letting us know it's tragic, all right.

10.10.11

LOS TIGRES DEL NORTE, “EL MOJADO ACAUDALADO”

19th July, 1997


The last time we heard from Los Tigres, they were taking on corruption and systemic failure in the Mexican government. Their return engagement to the top of the chart, in contrast, sees the most fearless conjunto in norteño engaging directly with the immigrant experience. "El Mojado Acaudalado" means "The Prosperous Wetback" (the slur is comparable, maybe, to the way country music has reclaimed "redneck"), and the lyrics are as plain and direct as any we've seen:

Me estés esperando Mexico lindo
Por eso mismo me voy a ir
Soy el mojado acaudalado
Pero en mi tierra quiero morir

(Beautiful Mexico, you're waiting for me
That's just where I'm heading to
I'm the prosperous wetback
But I want to die in my own country)

The crisp stomp backing up this bone-dry recitative is beautiful in its spareness, a repeated descending bassline as close as we get to any instrumental flourishes. The fact that the song opens with the chorus sung by a child is perfectly appropriate: it's simple enough for a child (or an uneducated laborer) to sing, as plain as a hymn, as straightforward as a nursery rhyme. Comparisons with country music, especially Johnny Cash's bone-dry rattle or Hank Williams' brusque eloquence, are inevitable; and in the roundup of American placenames to which the narrator is saying goodbye, it echoes the grand old country tradition of a travelin' song. But it also positions him as much American as Mexican -- W. E. B. DuBois' notion of "double consciousness" is as applicable to the immigrant laborer as to the black American.

For the nth time, I'm not rating these out of ten. I suspect, though, that if I was, this would be one a ten.

3.10.11

JUAN GABRIEL &; ROCÍO DÚRCAL, “EL DESTINO”

14th June, 1997


The title of their album, one of the best-selling of the year (it went gold in Mexico, but double platinum in the United States — which should tell you something about the Latin-music market in the 1990s), was Juntos Otra Vez (together again), and even I, who know very little about either Dúrcal or Gabriel, can't help but feel sentimental about their reunion. The beginning of this journey may have been entirely arbitrary, but it began with her singing a song written by him, and this final pairing, just before she developed the lung cancer that would eventually kill her, is very much a fitting swan song, sweeping, majestic, and sumptuously reveling in the fine details of their voices, both separately and together.

Juntos Otra Vez was written and performed as a stage show — performed in a sumptuous opera house in Jalisco, the heart of the nineteenth-century son ranchera movement that Gabriel is evoking with his compositions and orchestrations — and released both as a studio album and a live video. You can see the video of "El Destino" above; its artificial staging and odd light show feel very 90s, but the music is timeless, echoing both nineteenth-century Mexican romanticism and Gabriel's old orchestrations from the 80s (those puffs of trumpets are very like the synthesized horns decorating "La Guirnalda").

The song is equally timeless, a love song — "¿me quieres?" (do you love me), she begins, and he echoes "te quiero" (I love you) — built on an epic scale, meant to soundtrack an epic romance. True to Gabriel's form, however, it's surprisingly bloodless — there's no carnality to the lyrics, no passion (though you could say that he and Dúrcal provide all that's necessary). "Soy tu amigo y tambien tu hermano" (I am your friend and also your brother), he sings at one point, as though brotherly friendship is the stuff of epic romance.

All of which perhaps makes the point that it's a true portrait of the relationship between Juan Gabriel and Rocío Dúrcal. They clearly held each other in great regard and affection — and indeed neither of them was ever as great separately as they were together — but it was a platonic, professional love. Platonic love, however, doesn't pay the pop radio bills. This song was only number one for a week, a tribute to the affection in which both singers were held by the wide Latin audience; but it also marks the end of an era. Newer, younger voices are coming up from behind.