“Tú y Las Nubes” (You and the Clouds) by José Alfredo Jiménez, English translation of lyrics

“You and the Clouds” Lyrics
Style: Ranchera, Mexican oldie from the mid-20th century. This unrequited love song was featured in the Mexican movie La Fiera (1956).
Country: Mexico
Listen: YouTube

Translation:

Ay, ay, ay
(Cariño, mío, ríndete ya)

Ay, ay, ay
(My dear, hang your white flag)

Ando volando bajo,
Mi amor está por lo suelos,
Y tú tan alto, tan alto,
Mirando mis desconsuelos,
Sabiendo que soy un hombre
Que está muy lejos del cielo.

I am flying low,
My love is dragging the floors,
And you so high, so high,
Watching my grief,
Knowing that I am a man
Who is very far from heaven.

Ando volando bajo
Nomás porque no me quieres
Y estoy clavado contigo
Teniendo tantos placeres.

I am flying low
Only because you don’t love me
And I am stuck on you
Despite having so many pleasures.

Me gusta seguir tus pasos
Habiendo tantas mujeres. [*alt. Teniendo…]
Tú y las nubes me tienen muy loco,
Tú y las nubes me van a matar.
Yo pa’ arriba, volteo muy poco,
Tú pa’ abajo, no sabes mirar. (Ay ay ay ya)

I like to follow your steps
Despite there being so many other women. [*alt. having…]
You and the clouds drive me crazy,
You and the clouds are going to kill me.
I, above, turn to look very little,
You, below, don’t tend to gaze. (Ay ay ay ay)

Yo no nací pa’ pobre,
Me gusta todo lo bueno,
Y tú tendrás que quererme
O en la batalla me muero,
Pero esa boquita tuya
Me habrá de decir te quiero.

I was not born to be poor,
I love all the good things,
And you will have to love me
Or in this battle I will die,
But that little mouth of yours
Will certainly tell me “I love you”.

Árbol de la esperanza
Que vives solo en el campo,
Tú dime si no la olvido
O dime si no la aguanto,
Que al fin y al cabo, mis ojos
Se van a llenar de llanto.

Tree of Hope
Who lives only in the fields,
You tell me if I can’t forget her
Or tell me if I can’t stand her,
Because in the end, my eyes
Will fill up with tears.

Tú y las nubes me tienen muy loco
Tú y las nubes me van a matar.
Yo pa’ arriba, volteo muy poco,
Tú pa’ abajo, no sabes mirar.

You and the clouds drive me crazy
You and the clouds are going to kill me.
I, above, turn to look very little,
You, below, don’t tend to gaze.

Translation Notes:

Cariño, mío, ríndete ya

My dear, hang your white flag
My dear, give up now

This introduction dialogue isn’t in all versions, but it sets the scene. The singer is courting a woman and not getting anywhere, keeps trying, and implores for her to give him a chance.

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Ando volando bajo,
Mi amor está por lo suelos

I am flying low,
My love is dragging the floors

The phrase “por los suelos” (lit. over the floors) creates a rhyming poetic contrast with the typical love song phrase, “por los cielos” (lit. by the heavens). The woman he courts is high above him, seems unreachable, and she is aware of his affection for her but does not respond.

Y tú tan alto, tan alto,
Mirando mis desconsuelos,
Sabiendo que soy un hombre
Que está muy lejos del cielo.

And you so high, so high,
Watching my grief/distress,
Knowing that I am a man
Who is very far from heaven.

The singer wishes that she would respond to him and lift him from his sorrow, but she just watches him. There is a social class aspect to the song which is common for José Alfredo Jiménez songs. The highs and lows are not just to contrast their different emotional states (she is fine, he is sad) but also their social classes (she is higher class than him).

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Ando volando bajo
Nomás porque no me quieres
Y estoy clavado contigo
Teniendo tantos placeres.

I am flying low
Only because you don’t love me
And I am stuck on you
Despite having so many pleasures.

Here, the singer challenges the social class difference and claims he is only low because she doesn’t love him. The idiomatic phrase “estoy clavado contigo” (lit. I am stuck with you, I am nailed to you) is Mexican slang for “I have a crush on you”. He laments that he has other people or hobbies he could be interested in, but nevertheless he is stuck on her.

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Me gusta seguir tus pasos
Habiendo tantas mujeres [*movie version]
Teniendo tantas mujeres [*alternative]

I like to follow your steps
Despite there being so many other women [*movie version]
Despite having so many other women [*alternative]

The movie version is about a man pining for a woman, not being able to think about other women. It is down to earth and more likely the truth. I like this version more.

The alternative is self-aggrandizing. He says “I do have other women, I just prefer you” which is an attempt at negging and likely not true, but the audience understand that and is sympathetic. José Alfredo Jiménez songs often feature the Hero Underdog, a man down on his luck who nevertheless has strong self-worth, the hero of his own story and the one we root for. His most famous song “El Rey” (The King) is a great example of this.

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Tú y las nubes me tienen muy loco,
Tú y las nubes me van a matar.

You and the clouds drive me crazy,
You and the clouds are going to kill me.

The clouds are a reference to the women’s environment. The main meaning of “las nubes” (the clouds) is visual imagery of this woman’s high altitude and distance from him (literally in the clouds). Additionally, this is a reference to social class and the singer’s frustration at how seriously people take it. The clouds are the people around the woman, the expectations of society, all the things that circle her and not him. The clouds keep them apart, to his frustration.

Yo pa’ arriba, volteo muy poco,
Tú pa’ abajo, no sabes mirar.

I, above, turn to look very little,
You, below, don’t tend to gaze.

I don’t look up very often,
You don’t tend to gaze down.

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Yo no nací pa’ pobre
Me gusta todo lo bueno

I was not born to be poor
I love all the good things

Here, the singer laments that he was born poor but is not satisfied with living a poor life. He wants the finer things in life.

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Y tú tendrás que quererme
O en la batalla me muero
Pero esa boquita tuya
Me habrá de decir te quiero

And you will have to love me
Or in this battle I will die
But that little mouth of yours
Will certainly tell me “I love you”

He isn’t giving up courting her. To him, this is a battle worth fighting and he thinks that he can win her over, or die trying.

Me habrá de + [verb] = Will need to [verb] me

This syntax is for predictions of the future that the speaker wants to make true, or expects will become true.

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Que al fin y al cabo, mis ojos
Se van a llenar de llanto.

Because in the end, my eyes
Will fill up with tears.

Because when all is said and done, my eyes
Will fill up with cries.

The phrase “al fin y al cabo” is an idiomatic repetitive phrase used to end stories that means “at the end and at the end“. It’s just two ways of saying “at the end”.

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“Tu y Las Nubes” by Jose Alfredo Jimenez, song lyrics translation from Spanish to English