Spanish songs translated to English with side-by-side lyrics and notes for Spanish learners
“I Will Wait For You”
Style: Pasillo, vals (waltz), unrequited love song.
Country: Ecuador
Listen: YouTube, Amazon
Te esperaré.
Sé que me quieres
Y yo seré tu adoración.
En mi recuerdo, grabado estará tu nombre.
Toda la vida, te esperaré y serás mi gran amor.
“The Woman”
Album: Seis (Six), 2021
Style: A gloriously dramatic bolero breakup song. The dramatic but energetic style makes the lyrics imagery clearly figurative, not literal, but possibly this needs a trigger warning for suicide/murder/drugs. Just in case!
Countries: Chile; Mexico
Listen: YouTube, Amazon
“The White Horse”
Style: Corrido about a white horse, but it’s really about a road trip all over Mexico on a car (romanticized as a horse).
Country: Mexico
Listen: YouTube, Amazon
This song is about a road trip [es] that José Alfredo Jiménez took from Guadalajara (in central Mexico) to Baja California (just south of the United States southwest) on a white 1957 Chrysler. It is a good song to teach Mexican geography, since he mentions the places he passes on his journey.
Este es el corrido del caballo blanco,
Que en un día domingo feliz arrancara. *
Iba con la mira de llegar al norte, *
Habiendo salido de Guadalajara.
This is the narrative of the white horse,
That on a Sunday, happily took off. *
He went with the goal of reaching the north, *
Having left from Guadalajara.
“First Day”
Album: Limon y Sal (Lemon and Salt), 2006
Style: Pop, love song, possibly breakup song, possibly the start of a new relationship though it sounds like one person wants it more than the other.
Country: Mexico
Listen: YouTube
“Yours and Mine”
Album: Mis Manos (Mi Hands), 2021
Style: A romantic Norteña (a North Mexican music style)
Countries: Colombia (Camilo), Mexico (Los Dos Carnales)
Listen: YouTube.
“I Want To See You Happy”, 2021 single
Countries: USA (California), Mexico
Style: Cumbia about being ready to be happy again despite all the bad things happening in the world.
Listen: YouTube, Amazon
No es que me valga madre la vida,
El dolor de la gente, el frío, y el hambre.
La angustia está presente.
El odio se siente, el ambiente se pone caliente.
It’s not that I don’t give a damn about life,
People’s pain, the cold, and hunger.
The anguish is there.
The hate is palpable, the environment heats up.
Songlations 