Las garras del destino

I'm always unsure about posting the songs in languages other than English here, so I'll post this one with the question, would you listen to the song even if you don't understand the lyrics?

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posted by micayetoca (17 comments total)

This is a Mexican corrido, with the added charm that it was written by the vocalist of my band, who is from London. It was recorded at normal speed and then accelerated a little bit to give it that sort of mock tone, which seems to go really well with the Mexican theme.

The story is about a poor family in a poor neighborhood, it starts with the birth of Panchito, the firstborn son, then describes details about the life of family (Panchito was followed by 7 boys and one girl) until the day, 15 years after Panchito's birth, when a stray bullet hits the father in the street.

Panchito runs and kneels besides his father (an ill-fortuned innocent pedestrian, says the song) who then gives him his last words of advice: respect what is not yours, and don't mess with those Coreans.

The song came out of a "game" greg (the vocalist) used to do with some friends, which consisted of grabbing police press releases and singing them as you were reading. Only here the lyrics are made up, they aren't an actual press release.

It was recorded in a Tascam 4 track portastudio about 4 years ago and this begins to feel like too much information, so I'll leave it at that. Hope you like it.
posted by micayetoca at 6:47 AM on February 28, 2007

Sounds great.
And yes, I would listen to it without understanding it. I like how the language sounds. My only concern would be that I was singing along to words that said something embarrassing.
posted by chococat at 9:06 AM on February 28, 2007

Good move speeding it up - sounds great!
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:32 AM on February 28, 2007

Yup, I think speeding it up is a nice touch.

Understanding lyrics isn't important at all to me. I listen to a lot incomprehendible vocals. Sounding good is all that matters. If the lyrics happen to be good, that's an added bonus.

Heh, Coreans? As in from 'Corea'?
posted by ignignokt at 11:03 AM on February 28, 2007

yeah, actual Koreans. My bad, in Spanish it is Corea. The thing is that in Tepito, the neighborhood that the song is inspired in, there is a strong Korean mafia.
posted by micayetoca at 11:04 AM on February 28, 2007

I would definitely listen to this (and did, actually!). I lived for a time in a meat-packing town in the midwest, in a neighborhood that was predominately Hispanic and would hear this stuff all day long. I loved it. It led me to read a lot of stuff by Americo Paredes and become somewhat interested in the narcocorridos that were coming out at the time. Sorry for the ramble, but the song cleared a cobweb in my brain. Thanks and great song.
posted by sleepy pete at 2:02 PM on February 28, 2007

also, sorry that I suck at remembering the accent symbols, especially in Paredes' first name
posted by sleepy pete at 2:09 PM on February 28, 2007

Fantastic! And to answer your question; Hell yea!

A coincidence: I've been trying to find music/chords/tabs for mexican traditionals, folk, corridos, anything in which the bass goes BUMP bump BUMP bump, and I can't find a damn thing. Sorry to derail but, any ideas?

BTW, Great song man!
posted by snsranch at 2:35 PM on February 28, 2007

Actually, yes: La Cuerda. That particular link will take you to a list of tabs for corridos from Los Tigres del Norte, but in that same site you can look for more by artist/song name. Send me an email if you need more help with it.
posted by micayetoca at 2:49 PM on February 28, 2007

micayetoca: you never have to apologize for anything you put on here. Enough on that.

I am sooooooo glad you said it was speeded up, because I thought my ears were playing tricks on me.

Great work.
posted by Ynoxas at 3:03 PM on February 28, 2007

Dude, I'm all ABOUT singing in other langidges.

Nice song! We should make a "foreign language" tag of some sort.
posted by ORthey at 9:15 PM on February 28, 2007

Easily half the music I listen to with any regularity (and it's been that way for years with me) is sung in languages other than English. So for me personally the answer to your question is NO PROBLEM!

And this is great, mica. I always enjoy your stuff!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:35 AM on March 1, 2007

Hey thx to you all for answering the question. I'll keep posting them regardless of the language, then.

And ORthey, that's a good idea, I added a NotInEnglish tag to the songs that were not in English, if you add it to your songs perhaps we can turn it into the most used tag!
posted by micayetoca at 2:05 AM on March 1, 2007

I ONLY listen to songs not in english! Please go ahead, and since I'm particularly interested in spanish/latino music, thank you!
posted by dhruva at 7:11 PM on March 1, 2007

I like music in languages that aren't English, although I would also be happy to see lyrics, because I like to know what's going on.

This is also the case in English.
posted by that girl at 5:14 PM on March 2, 2007

Las Garras del Destino
(Un malafortunado transeúnte inocente)

En un barrio bravo entre bravos
Una vecindad común y corriente
Amanece un día de septiembre
Con un nuevo habitante
Don Ignacio con puro en mano
Sonríe y mira a su hijo

Quince años van pasando tranquilitos
No hay lujo pero tampoco pasan hambre
A Panchito le va bien en la escuela
Le han seguido siete machos y una hembra
Pero en la tarde, en la esquina, tres balazos
Cambian el rumbo de nuestro cuento

Panchito sale corriendo a la calle
Pocos segundos después del tiroteo
Se arrodilla al lado de su padre
Mientras el charco rojo se hace mas grande
A un malafortunado transeúnte inocente
Le alcanzaron las Garras del Destino

Padre susurra a su hijo:

Respeta a lo ajeno
Y no te metas con los coreanos.
posted by micayetoca at 4:07 AM on March 3, 2007

Awesome! Thanks.
posted by that girl at 10:37 AM on March 4, 2007