We wrap up Ida y Vuelta month with one more guajiras. Oscar was here last week, so I asked him to share a favorite guajiras for today.
That letra is below followed by a video of Concha Jareño dancing por guajiras. LOVE this dance.
Enjoy...
Guajiras
Popular
Contigo me caso Indiana
si se entera tu papá
y se lo dice a tu mamá
hermosísima cubana
tengo una casa en la Habana
destinada para tí ay!
con el techo de marfil
y el piso de plataforma
para tí blanca paloma
llevo yo la flor de lis.
I'll marry you, Indiana*
if your dad finds out
and tells your mom,
beautiful Cuban woman
I have a home in Havana
waiting for you
oh with a ivory ceiling
and a porch
for you, White Dove,
I bring the iris flower.
In the video below Concha Jareño dances por guajiras.
You will not hear the letra above, but I wanted you to see this dance. All of this month's videos have been focused on the music and the singing, claro, that's why it's called Viernes con una Letra, but watching Concha's dancing gives us an idea of the tone this cante de ida y vuelta sets for the dancer.
See how she interprets it below:
(Update: You can watch Lucero Tena dance to today’s letra here.)
*Indiana.
EDIT: Marisela, a reader, offered the following information about the meaning of 'indiana.' She says:
Spain called the Americas "The Indies" because of Columbus' confusion about what he had encountered. The name stuck and "Indiano/a" was applied later until the XIX century to many things: Those men in Spain who came to the Americas to make fortunes with the idea of getting back to Spain to marry their novias; and by extension, those born particularly in the Caribbean, of Spanish ancestry (but not part of the indigenous population, since that population was almost extinct after the XVI century).
Thank you, Marisela!
The letra from the video above uses this term again:
"Me encontré con una indiana que se llamaba Juliana."
"I met up with an indiana named Juliana..."