“Dile Que Por Mí No Tema” by Celia Cruz, English translation

“Tell Them Not To Fear Me” Lyrics
Album: Boleros (Boleros), 1993
Style: Bolero, which is both a dance style and a story-telling lyrics style. Song telling an ex that you have a new (better) sweetheart and that your ex should tell their own new lover not to worry about you, because you’ve moved on. Also an example of a gender neutral Spanish song.
Country: Cuba
Listen: YouTube

Translation:

Dile a tu nuevo querer
Que no hay nada que temer
Porque hace ya mucho tiempo
Que te borré de mi mente
Y no me acuerdo de ti…

Tell your new beloved
That there is nothing to fear
Because it’s been a long time now
Since I erased you from my mind
And I don’t remember you…

…Pues toda mi atención
La tengo puesta en alguien
Que lo merece en verdad
Al saberme mimar
Tal como lo soñé.

…Because all my attention
Is placed on someone else
Who truly deserves it,
Who knows how to pamper me
Just as I dreamed.

Me cuida, le cuido,
Me besa, le beso.
Compartimos nuestro cariño
Y no me queda un instante disponible
Para ocuparme de quien no respetó nunca mi amor.

They take care of me, I take care of them,
They kiss me, I kiss them.
We share our love
And I don’t have a moment left over
To pay attention to someone who never respected my love.

He perdido el tiempo pensando, creyendo
Las falsas promesas que hacías.

I have lost my time thinking, believing
Those false promises you made.

Ojalá puedas hacerle muy feliz
Y no tenga que sufrir
La decepción que yo sufrí.

I hope you can make them very happy
And may they never have to suffer
The deceptions that I suffered.

[Repeat the song]

Translation Notes:

Celia Cruz was one of the most famous Spanish-language singers of the 20th century. She was known as the Queen of Salsa.

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This song is a great example of gender neutrality in Spanish. These lyrics could be about any person, singing to their ex of any gender who is now dating a new person of any gender, telling them about their own new better lover of any gender. Due to Celia Cruz’s large LGBTQ fan base, it could have been intentional and I respected that in the translation.

Note on gender: these Spanish lyrics can be read gender neutral throughout the whole song. There are no pronouns, verb conjugations, reflexive words, or nouns that unambiguously indicate gender anywhere. There are some words that refer to the ex that could be masculine, but are not required to be masculine and sound pretty neutral. Non-Spanish speakers think that Spanish is very binary gendered, and that is often how it is taught (at least in the USA) for simplicity, but Spanish’s grammar is really more feminine vs masculine/neutral, not feminine vs masculine. Grammatically masculine words are often used when neutrality is intended, even in official textbook grammar, for example see Spanish plural words referring to groups of people (e.g. los estudiantes, the students; los padres, the parents). The decision to interpret a plural word as neutral or masculine is of course dependent on listener expectations and biases, which has been brought up for career nouns like los doctores (the doctors) and los ingenieros (the engineers) which listeners may still imagine as groups of men, to the frustration of doctoras and ingenieras everywhere. Finding neutral language in Spanish is possible but remains a topic of many contemporary linguistic debates.

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Dile a tu nuevo querer

Tell your new beloved

Gender neutral. The word “nuevo” ends in -o (not -a, for feminine nueva) because “un querer” (a beloved) is gender neutral. The -o ending is not masculine here. Saying “nueva querer” would be grammatically incorrect and awkward even if referring to a woman. You could say “nueva querida” to clarify it was a woman, but otherwise it’s ambiguous.

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Me cuida, le cuido,
Me besa, le beso.

They take care of me, I take care of them,
They kiss me, I kiss them.

Here, Celia Cruz could have shown clear gender by changing the direct object and saying “lo cuido” (I take care of him) or “la cuido” (I take care of her), but “le cuido” sounds gender neutral. It was equivalent to “lo cuido” in old Castillian Spanish grammar, but it is not necessarily masculine in contemporary Spanish.

To learn more:

• “Leísmo and the Use of ‘Le’ in Spanish” [ThoughtCo.com] – historically la was feminine, and masculine could be either le or lo.
• “The Acquisition of Sexist Language by Native and Non-Native Speakers of Spanish” by Thomas J. Mathews [weber.edu] – article about how contemporary Spanish speakers accept le as referring to a man or a woman. That is how I interpret it also.

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Y <no me queda> [un instante disponible]
{Para ocuparme de} quien no respetó nunca mi amor.

And <I don’t have> [a moment] <left over>
{To pay attention to} someone who never respected my love.

And <I don’t have> [a free moment] <left over>
{To pay attention to} one who never respected my love.

Here, Celiz Cruz uses quien (one/someone) to refer to the ex-lover.

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Ojalá puedas hacerle muy feliz
Y [no tenga que] {sufrir} la decepción que yo sufrí.

I hope you can make them very happy
And [may they never have to] {suffer} the deceptions that I suffered.

Again, Spanish language could have used gender here with hacerla (make her) or hacerlo (make him), but hacerle (make them, using singular “them”) sounds gender neutral.

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“Dile Que Por Mi No Tema” by Celia Cruz