Category: Spanish

Music…

Las Mil Y Una Noches

Luz Y Sombra

Flans

and Words

Por dejar escapar
El encanto de un tesoro
Fuimos un par de locos
Por dejarnos tirar a matar

No vamos a encontrar
Otra playa que tenga palmeras moviéndose al viento
No vamos a lograr
Un amor a medida otra vez

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

As I grew up, there was always a variety show on television called “Siempre en Domingo”.  It literally means “Always on Sunday” in Spanish and played for hours every Sunday.  It was just ‘a thing’ the way we may think of General Hospital, it was so consistent that you can set your calendar by it.  While it ran from the late 60’s, I remember it most vividly during the 80’s while my sister tuned it.  While she clung on to her Spanish roots, I generally ignored it, if even shunned it a bit.  Naturally, the show played mostly Spanish artists.

Continue reading “The flawed reality of young romance” →

Music…

El Progreso

El Progreso

Roberto Carlos

and Words

Yo quisiera poder aplacar una fiera terrible
Yo quisiera poder transformar tanta cosa imposible
Yo quisiera decir tantas cosas que pudieran hacerme sentir bien conmigo
Yo quisiera poder abrazar mi mayor enemigo

Yo quisiera no ver tantas nubes oscuras arriba
Navegar sin encontrar tantas manchas de aceite en los mares
Y ballenas desapareciendo por falta de escrúpulos comerciales
Yo quisiera ser civilizado como los animales

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

This is a story from my young childhood; I was about five or six years old.  My family rode in my dad’s Chevy Nova into San Juan.  It was night and the sky was dark except for the streetlights.  I forget precisely where we went, but we ate oranges in the car as we drove there.  As I finished mine, I rolled down the window and tossed the remains into the freeway.

I won’t tell you that I’m proud of it nor that this is an excuse, but it’s something that many people did in Puerto Rico.  The freeway offramps were covered with litter.  This ranged from napkins to paper cups, but what was probably the worst were cigarette butts.  No one seemed content to wait to get home to unload their waste; the world was your wastebasket.

Continue reading “Are we making progress?” →

Music…

Así Nacemos

Soy… Julio Iglesias

Julio Iglesias

and Words

Con los ojos cerrados, (with our eyes shut)
Como presintiendo (as if we anticipate)
Que horrible es el mundo que vamos a ver… (the cruel world that we’ll see)

Con el llanto en los labios (with a cry on our lips)
Como lamentando (as if we lament)
Llegar a una tierra que buena no es… (arriving to an awful place)

Con las manos cerradas, (with our hands clenched)
Como preparados (as if we prepare)
A dar duros golpes; morir o vencer… (for a fist fight, victorious or dead)

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I was about seven years-old at the time; we still lived in Puerto Rico.  Meanwhile, my dad got each of us a different album from Julio Iglesias in cassette.  This one (“Soy…”) was mine.  I’m not sure why he decided to get us these cassettes nor if any of us had an appreciation for music, especially since I still struggled to separate Spanish and Chinese words, but nonetheless this one was mine.

Yet this simple gesture started a lifetime of memories…  disjointed, yet stitched together like colors in a kaleidoscope.

Continue reading “My first album” →