Random Wednesday

This is traditional Colombian music, Vallenato. The song is from 1938, but Carlos Vives turned into the biggest pop hit across Latin America in the 90’s, took Vallenato to the mainstream.

As Robert Frost put it, poetry is what gets lost in translation; so the lyrics don’t translate well but, for those interested, they’re about two battling accordion players in some cow-town feud way-back:

“He thought he was going to beat me but when he heard me play, he felt a cold drop of sweat … now he’s lying to my mama, just for the sake of offending me. I’ll lie to his mama so he’ll get offended too. He can kill me or I can kill him so we can end this damn thing.”

• Carlos Vives – La Gota Fria

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