Month: August 2017

Sometimes my friend Bob, an academic professor of music and conductor in Wisconsin, sends me snippets of Spanish song lyrics to translate, because he actually needs them for his work. He knows I don't mind this, and even enjoy it.

Perhaps I should add to my blog's various tag-lines, at left, the phrase "The Only Spanish-to-English translation service operating in the Korean Peninsula!" I would be pretty confident this is true, though who really knows what Kim Jeong-eun is up to in his secret cultural propaganda factories in the basements of Pyeongyang.

Yesterday, Bob sent me a song in the genre of candombe (see the wiki thing).  He was hoping I could translate it and/or offer some cultural observations. Here's what I sent back to him this morning.

Here's an in-line translation, mostly "on the fly" with a few checks with the RAE (Royal academy of Spanish Dictionary website). There are a few disorganized notes below the translation.

Candombe del seis de enero

Verse 1

Es por todos sabido que el 6 de enero
    Everyone knows that January 6th
es el dia de los Reyes Magos
    is the day of the Three Magi [Epiphany]
y en honor de uno de ellos, el más negro
    and to honor one of them, the darkest,
se programa una fiesta en el barrio.
    a party is arranged in the neighborhood

Es por todos sabido que es el más negro
    Everyone knows that the darkest,
el rey de los santos candomberos
    the king of the candombe saints
San Baltasar es un santo muy alegre
    Saint Balthazar is a very happy saint
dice la mama Inés y mueve los pies.
    that's what Mama Inés says, and she moves her feet

Refrain

Listos corazones
    Ready hearts
van con el candombe
    come with candombe
y con este ritmo a profesar,
    and with this rhythm, to show
los rojos colores
    the bright colors
con festón dorado,
    with golden edging
le gustan al rey San Baltasar.
    they love Saint Balthazar

Verse 2

La comuna convoca y lo venera
    The troupe gathers and venerates
por la estrella lucero que el ciclo espera
    under the Wandering Star that the calendar will bring
San Baltasar se hamaca sobre las aguas
    Saint Balthazar rocks over the waters
de un mar de promesantes que canta y baila.
    of a sea of worshippers who sing and dance

Conversa el ronco bombo mientras avanza
    the husky drum speaks as it moves forward
repican tamboriles en las comparsas
    tambourines sing out in the dance-lines
fiesta criolla de negros y blanqueados
    a high-caste party of blacks and whites together
cuando cambian de toque cambian de estado.
    when the rhythm changes, the whole mood changes

Refrain

– by Yábor (Uruguayan folk singer, b 1950) – in-line translation is mine

Possibly controversial translations:

* criollo as high-caste – normally criollo is translated as "Creole" but that, in colloquial English, is tightly associated with Franco-Carribean culture, which obviously is something different than what we have here. So I went back to the original Spanish meaning (actually originally Portuguese), which is a reference to a specific rank within the complex caste system that existed in Spanish colonial America – the criollos were the locally born white folk, thus at the top of the caste system. But criollo also developed a broader meaning of "locally born" as opposed to "foreigner" (immigrants and "peninsulares" i.e. Spaniards) – especially during the 19th century. So in that sense, the "fiesta criollo" might just mean "a party for and by locals". In the first half of the 20th century, it even became a kind of term of pride that was essentially unifying as opposed to divisive. Probably that's what's intended, here, but by using the term "high caste" I'm getting at the word's problematic roots.

* toque as rhythm – that's not a dictionary translation, but it seems to fit the context. It really might be wrong, but "when the touch changes" feels meaningless to me, so I made a guess based on my feel for broader semantics of the word toque – much wider than English "touch" – and my vague recollections of interactions with Spanish-speaking folk musicians (a few in the 1980s, and one, a close friend of my dad's, in the 2000s).

The most notable thing about this song, to me, is the clear implication that whites participate and enjoy, too ("a high-caste party of blacks and whites together"). This is underscored by the insistence that Saint Balthazar is the "darkest" – it's announcing a kind of "Africa Day" for the whole community, which is unifying in a pre-PC way. That's how I read it, anyway. Cynically, if Yábor is the author (and I think he is), as a white Uruguayan folk singer, he would naturally want to emphasize this aspect if he decided to author a candombe. In that sense, this song most definitely is a bit of cultural appropriation, but perhaps no less authentic or meaningful for that – it represents a genuine if somewhat starry-eyed effort at racial unity in the complex landscape of Latin American racial politics (which, we must always remember, work differently than US racial politics, as much as we want to notice the obvious parallels and similarities).

What I'm listening to right now.

Yábor, "Candombe del 6 de enero."

Letra (above).

[daily log: walking, 7km]