Listen to this little boy sing!

Now twenty years old, this clip is from when Raúl El Balilla was a little boy blowing people’s minds with his talent.

Watch him wow José Mercé below. (The singing begins at about 7:30.)

He sings this at 8:30:

Y viviré
hasta que el alma me suene
y aquí estoy para morir
cuando me llegue

I’ll keep living
so long as my soul sounds,
and I’ll be ready to die
when my time comes.

It looks like this comes from the poem, Sentado sobre los muertos, by the Spanish poet, Miguel Hernández who was imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War and died there at the age of thirty one.

Here is the final stanza from the poem:

Aquí estoy para vivir
mientras el alma me suene,
y aquí estoy para morir,
cuando la hora me llegue,
en los veneros del pueblo
desde ahora y desde siempre.
Varios tragos es la vida
y un solo trago la muerte.

You can read the full poem here.

Wow.

It is intense, and I wouldn’t dare attempt to translate it.

I learned here that he wrote it during his first days fighting the Nationalists in the war.

You might also be interested in these flamenco letras Miguel Hernández wrote but never published.

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Cover photo by Orfeas Green on Unsplash