Spanish (page 11)

Beginners’ Spanish I (SPAN 201): Listening to Music

Aleezay Nadeem

In order to explore and engage with the Spanish language and Spanish-speaking cultures, I decided to listen to various songs by the best-selling pop band Mecano. Based in Spain, the band’s mid-90s songs are embedded with influences from Latin American music and contemporary pop. I chose to focus on three songs from their discography, which I listened to through Spotify – Una Rosa es Una Rosa, Un Año Mas, and “Eungenio” Salvador Dalí.

Una Rosa es Una Rosa, to begin with, is a song I discovered through the recommendation of my father, who lived in the Dominican Republic during the 1990s. The song pairs a dramatic array of instruments with lyrics that revolve around a romance in which the singer attempted to pursue a relationship with a woman while disregarding the negative parts of her nature. This denial eventually led to heartbreak when these parts of her could no longer be overlooked. This leads back to the title of the song, “Una Rosa es Una Rosa” (a rose is a rose), which suggests that denial or oblivion cannot change who someone really is. Some of the lyrics I understood myself in this song were “no puedo vivir sin ella, pero con ella tampoco” (I can’t live without her, neither can I live with her”), “mi las curó muy mosa” (it healed me”), and “no me podía pinchar” (I couldn’t get pricked), which I managed to understand using context clues. It also introduced me to new words and phrases, including “hembra” (female), “me estoy volviendo loco” (I’m going crazy), “tumba” (grave), “cortar” (cut), “me enseñó una cosa” (it taught me one thing” “,sangrar” (bleed), and “la deje caer” (I let it fall).

Un Año Mas seemingly takes a bittersweet approach to coming to terms with the passage of time, expressing a degree of helplessness about not being able to stop it, but also praying for better times in the years to come. I particularly enjoyed this song as, despite being in a language I am not yet fluent in, it still managed to successfully convey these mixed feelings about time flying by –something which is universally shared, by Spanish and non-Spanish speakers alike. To further highlight the main theme, this song repeatedly used certain words related to time that I was already familiar with, such as “años” (years), “minutos” (minutes), and “cuenta atrás” (countdown), as well as numbers ranging from one (uno) to seven (siete). I also understood the line “hacemos el balance de lo bueno y malo” (we balance the good and bad) as a result of what I learned in class. Words and phrases this song introduced me to included “reimos” (laugh), “entre gritos y pitos” (between screams and whistles), and “los petardos que borran sonidos de ayer … acaloran el ánimo para aceptar” (thefirecrackers that erase sounds from yesterday … warm up the spirit to accept).

Finally, “Eungenio” Salvador Dalí, as the title suggests, pays tribute to Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, who Mercano labels a genius. The song highlights not only the artist’s talent, but also his madness. I found the lyrics very interesting, as they were mostly comprised of vocabulary that was new to me, such as “morir” (die), “osamenta” (bones), “sedosa” (silky), and “bigote” (mustache); I did, however, understand certain words like “ojos” (eyes), “pincel” (papel), “bayonetas” (bayonets), “realista” (surrealista), and “reencarnas” (reincarnate), especially as many of them were written similarly to their english translations. Some new phrases I discovered through this song were “colirio y oculista de ojos delirantes” (eye drops and eye doctor with delirious gaze), “en tu paletamezclas místicos ascetas” (in your palette, you mix mystical ascetics), and “en tu cabeza se comprime la belleza” (beauty is compressed in your head). Of all these songs, this one made me feel the most immersed in Spanish culture, its subject, Salvador Dalí, had such a significant impact on it through his work.

I found many of the lyrics in these songs difficult to understand, and as a result, it took me a while to process the overall meaning behind each song. This is mainly due to the speed at which each line was being sung, as well as the conjugation of verbs I had not yet seen. However, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these works of Mecano, and especially loved their usage of instruments often associated with Spanish songs, which allowed me to feel very connected to Spanish culture.

Refrences

Mecano. (1998). Un Rosa es Una Rosa [Song]. On Aidalai. BMG Rights Management and Administration. https://open.spotify.com/track/05S3XObbDHG5CNK1g7IsMI?si=fbafa3523ecb4631

Mecano. (1998). Un Año Mas [Song]. On Descanso Dominical. BMG Rights Management and Administration. https://open.spotify.com/track/1seCZJ3pEVjghbzZ2mV4Xl?si=8cad5b961b5a4941

Mecano. (1998). “Eungenio” Salvador Dalí [Song]. On Descanso Dominical. BMG Rights Management and Administration. https://open.spotify.com/track/5oaqxCXysCvFkV1FTxXlAA?si=c6eb9b4826754eb0