Category Archives: Musical

De Tin Marin –Mexican Sorting Song

Nationality: United States/Mexico
Age: 19
Occupation: Resident Assistant/Student Worker
Residence: Los Angeles/Bell Gardens USA
Performance Date: 4/1/2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

“De tin marin, de don pingue

Cucara marcara, titere fue

Yo no fui, you tete

Que ese merito fue”

It can be translated* as follows:

“From Tin Marin, from two big ones,

Cockroach, mockroach, it was a puppet,

It wasn’t me, it was Teté,

the one who did it”

*edited from mamalisa.com–see citation below

Background:

This was performed by a student at the University of Southern California who comes from a Mexican/Catholic household. She went on to describe this as song “sort of like the ‘inny, miny, moe, except in Spanish.”  Her dad had taught it to her when she was a kid and remembers using it before she would play Freeze tag or other games with her family and friends.

Context:

This was performed when talking about childhood. There was a discussion happening about how growing up as first generation Mexican/Mexican American was different in California as compared to Arkansas. The song was brought up at this moment, but recorded at a later date.

Analysis:

This sorting song is very interesting. I had only ever heard it from my own parents, so hearing the differences caught my attention. The student says “que ese merito fue” as the last line of the song. However, other versions, including my own, end with “pegale, pegale, que ese merito fue.” The difference between these two is the “pegale, pegale” which translates to “hit (him/her), hit (him/her).” This difference might have to do with the student’s parents being highly religious, as noted through my interactions with her. Encouraging to harm another person would not have fit within her household.

The song itself has little actual meaning. The words rhythmically go together well and are structured so that it is easy to point at people on each syllable (like other sorting songs). It is also interesting that towards the end, it sounds like someone is accusing someone else of whatever action got the song started. For example, the “pegale, pegale, que ese merito fue” can alternatively be translated to “hit him, hit him, because he did it.” The blame ends up falling on whoever was pointed at last.

Website:

Songs and Rhymes from Mexico “Tin marin de does pingue.” Retrieved from Mama Lisa’s World “International Music and Culture.” website. mamalisa.com

Parody of Happy Birthday song

Nationality: American
Age: 8
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English

Happy birthday to me

I’m a hundred and three

I still go to pre-school

And miss my mommy.

My mommy’s at work

She thinks I’m a jerk

And I told the teacher

The dog ate my work

 

She heard it from multiple friends at school, during another classmate’s birthday party and after they sang the traditional Happy Birthday song. She likes it because she thought it was funny, and it was fun to try adding on new lines with her friends.

I have never heard of this song before, though I remember hearing lots of parodies and variations of the Happy Birthday song while growing up. It’s such a prominent song in kids’ lives, with the childhood importance of growing older, so it makes sense that new variations are still happening today.

Barney Theme Song

Nationality: American
Age: 8
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English

I hate you

You hate me

Let’s go kill Barney

With a smack on the face

And a kick on the knee

Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee

 

She claimed to hear this from her friends at school. This song is just something that’s sung on the playground, for the purpose of humor.

Growing up I definitely heard a lot of variations of the Barney TV show theme song, and distinctly remember the words “I hate you, you hate me”. I don’t remember there being killing or violence, so the song seems a little more morbid than what I remember.

The Swinging Song

Nationality: American
Age: 8
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English

My cheeks are red

My mouth is singing

My heart is beating

And my brain is thinking

I like to swing, but that’s not all

My favorite thing is to sing this swinging song

 

This is a song that was heard on the playground at school, and is sometimes sung by the students while playing on the swings. She also sings it on her swingset at home. She likes it because it’s a fun song to sing.

I’ve never heard this song before, so it may have come about recently.

An Encounter With A Bolero Musician

Nationality: Mexican (Oaxacan)
Age: 33
Occupation: Musician
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4 22 2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

The informant is a musician from Oaxaca, Mexico. He has been playing Bolero music for sixteen years and is incredibly talented. I approached him at an outdoor coffee shop after hearing him on his guitar. I’ve included a clip of him strumming a Bolero chord.

“Yes so, something I would like to share is music. When I think of folklore I think of my music, Bolero music, the genre of Bolero music. It was something that was taught to me by my dad when I was ten years old. And Bolero music comes from Cuba but it also kind of influenced from myself, to stay connected to my own culture, my own language.

So there’s a folklore of Bolero music. It’s kind of a lost tradition. So I celebrate it, I preserve it, everyday by playing the music, if not listening to it, that style of song on Spotify or on the radio.”

How did your father introduce it to you?

“I think through cassettes or CDs, we would listen to it every evening. And he told me and my brother ‘I want you to learn it, to learn this type of music. So he hired a teacher because it’s folk music. So Bolero is folk music, so you won’t learn it in universities or in schools. It’s specific to my culture.”

So what makes Bolero music distinct, what defines it?

“In my opinion what makes it distinct is the lyrics and talking about it musically, chords, the artists, what they call the golden era of Bolero music. It was started in the 1920s. It started in Mexico. But the music has history since 1883, so it has African, Cuban, European influences.

It’s a lot of heartbreak songs, like blues. But also celebrating love. There used to be serenades, like back in the 1930s-40s where you would serenade a woman that you felt attracted to, a partner. So it’s about love songs, it’s about feeling nostalgia.

I’ve been playing since I was fifteen, so sixteen years now. So now I’m trying to preserve it myself through a concert series that I started two years ago. There’s a lot of artists in LA that play this music but there’s no space or outlet for them to showcase especially folk music, and just folk music in general. So I created this concert series called Boleros De Noche.”

Some songs the informant recommended: Sin Ti, Amorcito Corazon, Cien Años, Sabor a mi, Besame Mucho. The first bolero is called Tristesas. That’s the first Bolero recorded.

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