Canciones de Sabado! (In Spanish!)

1. “Camino Y Vereda” – Café Tacuba

Although Café Tacuba has been hailed by some critics as the “Mexican Radiohead,” Tacuba is nothing of the sort. Far more so than Radiohead, they are grounded in native sounds and traditions—something that springs to life especially on their second album Re, which drops allusions to so many different styles of music—both “native” Latin-American styles and otherwise—that Re was correctly compared to the Beatles’ White Album.

“Camino Y Vereda,” which comes off of their fifth album Cuatro Caminos, observes a slightly more experimental Café Tacuba, but certainly nothing to the order of Radiohead. If there is a “headphones” album out there, this is it. There is so much happening on these careful rock songs that you wouldn’t want to miss out by airing if only to the open air. Believe me.

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2. “Pobre Juan” – Maná

Not only one of my all-time favorite Spanish songs, but one of my all-time favorites—once upon a time, it owned the top spot on the “Most Played” list on my iTunes. The song, which tells the story of a man who tries to cross the border to find a better life, but who dies in the attempt, is a heartbreaker. But not only that, Maná wraps this plaintive tale in colorful classic-rock. Much like Oasis, Maná is a band that sounds like many other bands; but, also like Oasis, they pull it off wonderfully.

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3. “Salvese Quien Pueda” – Juana Molina

Juana Molina is one trippy chick. If you start with her album Tres Cosas, everything seems pretty much in order—sort of weird, but nothing to call home about. The second you dip into the following album, Un Día, you find yourself in a world of precious loops and weird, acoustic/electric soundscapes. My favorite track tends to the more structured end of the Molina spectrum; “Sálvese Quien Pueda” is the third and most melodic track on Tres Cosas.

With bips and bleeps and creeping synths to set up the song, Molina’s voice floats over the mix, joined soon after by picked notes from an acoustic guitar before blossoming to a full strum at 1:34. The song does not so much build after that point as maintain a steady, comforting rhythm.

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4. “Chino” – La Mancha de Rolando

I discovered La Mancha de Rolando on a three-week visit to Uruguay and I could not get enough of them. Because the music video for “Chino”—their latest single at the time—was on heavy rotation on the local music channel, I ended up sitting through hours of crappy Spanish music videos just to get at four minutes and 21 seconds of wonder.

There’s really nothing so special about the music video; it’s a pretty rote exercise in semi-narrative and shots of the band playing on an abandoned country road. (Also…there’s not Chinese man…“chino,” after all, does mean “Chinese”…the woman is also not a redhead…) The music, however, bursts with the open-ended hope of a band that knows it may never be discovered, but is giving it a shot anyway.

“It is from now on I will live traveling,

far from everything that makes me bad,

far from what I am looking for.”

“Es que de ahora en más viviré viajando,

lejos de todo lo que me hace mal,

lejos está lo que estoy buscando.”

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5. “Alfonsina Y El Mar” – Mercedes Sosa

Hesitantly, I mention this song to you. This, after all, is one of those songs that will haunt you; it has certainly haunted me. The “Alfonsina” of the song is Alfonsina Storni, who, while not widely-known to the English-speaking world, was one of the foremost modern Latin-American poets. Struggling with both depression and breast cancer, Storni famously committed suicide—according to legend—by walking directly into the sea until she drowned. The previous day, she had sent her final poem to the La Nación newspaper. Here is an excerpt:

“I am going to sleep, my nurse, put me to bed.
Set a lamp at my headboard;
a constellation; whatever you like;
all are good: lower it a bit.”

“Voy a dormir, nodriza mía, acuéstame.
Ponme una lámpara a la cabecera;
una constelación; la que te guste;
todas son buenas; bájala un poquito.”

After her death, Ariel Ramírez and Félix Luna composed “Alfonsina Y El Mar” in her honor. The version above is from the distinctive and distinguished Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa, who worked with Ramírez and Luna throughout her career.

I can’t hear the line “Qué poemas nuevos fuiste al buscar? (What new poems have you gone to look for?) without a little gleam in my eye, if you know what I mean.