Tag: rancheras

Awright class, put away the phones and listen up. Today we’re covering a genre of Mexican music known as the rancheras. So here is a definition:

Ranchera, or canción ranchera, is a traditional Mexican music genre that emerged before the Mexican revolution, deeply tied to national identity and rural roots. Known for its emotive, passionate, and theatrical style, it features themes of love, nature, and patriotism, heavily influenced by mariachi music.

I’ve told this story before, but when I was sixteen I came across an album by a guy named Cuco Sanchez. In spite of being the poor and starving student that I was, I bought it when I could have had one by Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry instead. I’d never heard of Sanchez, had no idea of his importance (major) in Mexican music, and I didn’t know a ranchera from a quesadilla. (Actually, at that point in my life I didn’t know what a quesadilla was, either.)

But I fell in love with the album, and here I am sitting out on the backyard deck on a ninety degree day in May with an iced coffee on the table and Cuco Sanchez playing on my excellent Bose music system*. Cuco and I have a relationship that has lasted a loooooong time now, even with him having had the poor grace to pass away 26 years ago. That original vinyl album is long gone, but there are all these other ways to listen …

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Since every song Sanchez sang is done in a foreign language (bother), I will take this opportunity to reveal the lyrics of one of my favorites, Arrieros Somos.

Arrieros somos y en el camino andamos
Y cada quien tendrá su merecido
Ya lo verás que al fin de tu camino
Renegarás hasta de haber nacido

Si todo el mundo salimos de la nada
Y a la nada por Dios que volveremos
Me rio del mundo que al fin ni él es eterno
Por esta vida nomás nomás pasamos

Tú me pediste amor y yo te quise
Tú me pediste mi vida y te la di
Si al fin de cuentas te vas, pues anda vete
Que la tristeza te lleve igual que a mí

Arrieros somos y en el camino andamos

Oh, you want it translated? Sheesh. Who cuts up your meat for you?

We are muleteers
And we walk along the way
Everyone will have what they deserve
You’ll see that at the end of your path
You will deny even having been born

If we all came out of nowhere
And to nothing by God we will return
I laugh at the world that in the end not even it is eternal
For this life no more, no more we will pass

You asked me for love and I loved you
You asked me for my life and I gave it to you
If at the end of the day you leave, then go
May sadness take you the same as it does me

We are muleteers
And we walk along the way

Cheerful little ditty, no? I give it a ten for philosophical meandering, but a zero for danceability. Never mind the details, I’m a fan.

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Friday morning I threw away several hours of my life and took the Subaru in for some scheduled service. At 90,000 miles, every “scheduled service” seems to cost a thousand dollars and take three hours. While that might be appropriate for a transmission flush, I really wonder if changing the rear window wiper blade is that involved. But I am not a mechanic, and don’t understand such things very well. It’s all a gamble, isn’t it … you pays your money and you takes your chances.

I recall reading an article decades ago that when It came to car service you only had a 30% chance of getting what was needed properly done. For myself, the high (or low) point was a long time ago when I took a new Volkswagen in for its first dealer service. The mechanic saved a little time by draining the old oil but not putting any new stuff in. When I left the dealership I turned almost immediately onto the freeway, and that was when I noted the warning light on the dash board. By the time I could safely pull over, the engine was toast. Morte.

However, there is always something interesting happening in the waiting room. Across from me is an old dude wearing a cap advertising a Belizean beer. Obviously that brew holds some special significance for him, although in the thousands of beers I put away when I was misbehaving in the alcohol department, I can’t recall one that would cause me to buy a hat to celebrate it.

On the other side of the room there was an elderly lady who was receiving a speech from the service representative regarding her latest car inspection. One thing after another was mentioned as not crucial at the moment, but which needed attention very soon. As the sixth or seventh item was read, she began to laugh softly. You could tell that she had reached the point at which any further listing of automotive needs and woes was a waste of time because the part of her brain that dealt with cars was completely full and could accept no new data.

All the way across the lobby is a younger man who is wearing a tie-dyed tee shirt along with what looks like a pajama bottom whose design I can only imagine was created by a person coming down from a seriously bad trip.

But I am serene. I cannot be shaken by problems that are beyond my comprehension. I simply take them as Divine Judgement, and am grateful that they are not more harsh than they are. It is possible, even likely, that I deserve quite a bit more.

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A great Pink Floyd tune, Fearless, here covered by Billy Strings. Respect + imagination + musicianship = good music. Crank it up.

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Things to be grateful for can sometimes be nasty things indeed. For instance, we can thank the Cluck administration for making no attempt to hide its rampant corruption, making it easier for prosecutors down the road. We can thank the Supreme Court for making it absolutely clear that it is little more than a modern version of the Reich Supreme Court that became a tool of Nazi Germany. We can thank the gallery of incompetents that is our Justice and Homeland Security Departments for revealing themselves to anyone with a perfusing brain that they are neither about justice nor homeland security, but intimidation.

So when it comes time to choose, it will be an easier thing to do. This November we have our first real chance to begin remaking our republic, following the guidelines provided by our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. We can fire those Republican (and a few Democrats) toadies, and rethink how a healthier Supreme Court would look. We can start the process of removing Cluck’s fingers from the buttons that count.

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