I don’t know if I spelled it right but you know the catchy Mexican song about stomping on a roach I do believe. I don’t know hardly any Spanish so if I got that wrong someone please correct me. You know the tune "la cooc arattchaa…la cooc arattchaa… daaa da da daaa(boy, it is sure is hard to type out a tune).
Anyway is the song about stomping on roaches or not?
BTW, I love the song I have been humming it all morning and you probably will now too. 
La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
Ya no puede caminar.
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marihuana que fumar.
The cockroach, the cockroach,
Cannot march.
Because it doesn’t have, because it lacks
Marijuana to smoke.
the words I have always known are:
la cucaracha, la cucaracha,
ya no puedo caminar
porque no quiero,
porque me falta
marijuana que fumar
Which, loosely tranlated means:
“the cockaroach, the cockaroach
I can’t even walk
'cause I don’t want to,
'cause it’s my fault,
I smoked marijuana.”
Oddly enough, in an old Speedy Gonzalez cartoon, when his cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez came to visit, those were the words he was singing.
OK, now I gotta go all the way back to the HS days of Spanish class. The words literally translate to something like:
La cucaracha, la cucaracha, el no puede a bailar
The cockroach, he’s not able to dance.
La cucaracha, la cucaracha, blah blah blah blah a hablar.
The cockroach, he can only sing.
or something like that.
Mebbe I’ll look up the lyrics on the web. mebbe I won’t.
Regardless of the lyrics, it makes a catchy tune when stompin’ on 'em buggers!
Wow. I’m a long way away from my Spanish classes, ain’t I?
Sorry folks, you are all wrong. La Cucaracha is about a train named La Cucaracha, though I’m not sure why anyone would name a train this.
Here’s a site withe the original lyrics (non-blunt-smokin’-ones)
http://www.marshfield.coos-bay.k12.or.us/academics/bienvenidos/cucaracha.html
Translated, it’s basically a song supporting Pancho Villa against whatever government (Spain I would guess).
The original version was about smoking marijuana, not about stomping on roaches. It was a satirical song about Pancho Villa’s army. There have been some censored versions circulating with the marijuana reference deleted.
Here is the full original:
http://www.cs.ut.ee/~gordon/varia/lyrics/cucaracha.html
I’m back! Here’s what I found. It may not be any more help.
La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
ya no quiere caminar,
porque no tiene, porque le falta
dinero para gastar.
Una cucaracha pinta!
Le dijo a una colorada:
vámonos para mi tierre,
a pasar la temporada.
Todas las muchachas tienen
en los ojos dos estrellas,
pero las mejicanitas
de seguro son más bellas!
La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
ya no quiere caminar,
porque no tiene, porque le falta
dinero para gastar.
(Otra versión)
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Unas patitas para andar.
Ya murio la cucaracha
Ya la llevan a enterrrar
Entre cuatro zopilotes
Y un raton de sacristan.
Una cucaracha pinta
Le dijo a la colorada
Vamonos para mi tierra
A pasar la temporada
Man, would somebody please translate these lyrics?
For what it’s worth,Back in the days of Villa,and for many years after,the paper used to roll a smoke was brown wheat paper.
Therefore the hand rolled cigarette was brown and resembled a roach------and that’s where the term ‘roach’ came from.
Wheat paper was available all through the years right up to WW2.
Let me try Spritle’s versions:
The Cockroach can’t walk, because he doesn’t have, he lacks the money to eat. A painted cockroach! I give him (or perhaps “he gave to him”) a colored (bill?) Let’s go to my land to pass the time. All the girls have stars in their eyes, but the Mexican girls are surely the most beautiful! The Cockroach can’t walk, because he doesn’t have, he lacks the money to eat.
Other version:
The Cockroach can’t walk, because he doesn’t have, he lacks shoes to walk. The Cockroach died, and now their going to bury it between four (somethings) with a rat for the priest. A painted cockroach! I give him (or perhaps “he gave to him”) a colored (bill?) Let’s go to my land to pass the time.
REALLY bad Spanish, I’m sorry. Would make more sense if I knew more about Villa.
Spritle, those are the bowdlerized versions with the marijuana censored out.
I’ll try spritle’s version. My Spanish is very much influenced by my English, but I’ll give it the old high school try.
The cockaroach, the cockaroach
can no longer walk
Because he doesn’t have, because he’s missing
Money to waste.
A cockaroach paints!
A colored one said:
let’s go to my country,
to pass some time.
All the girls have
two stars in their eyes
But the mexican girls
are the most beautiful for sure
The cockaroach can’t walk 'cause he aint got no cash.
(Another version]
The cockaroach, the cockaroach
Can’t walk anymore
Because he doesn’t have, because he’s missing
A few for legs walking
The roach has died
they are taking him to be buried
Here comes four [somethings]
And a rat of [something]
A cockaroach paints
He said to the colored
Let’s go to my country
To pass the time
Oh please!
My understanding is that “La Cucaracha” is a humorous reference to Pancho Villa’s car.
This isn’t going to be perfect, but it will be better that the previous attempts, which miss a lot of the slang. As I’ve lived in Panama the last eight years, my Spanish ain’t too bad. This is a somewhat free translation:
The cockroach, the cockroach
doesn’t want to go now [in the sense of run, as a car]
because it doesn’t have, because it lacks,
money to spend.
The real last line of this verse should be:
marijuana que fumar
or: marijuana to smoke
A spotted [probably figurative, signifying “rude, mischevious”] cockroach!
I’ll tell you a dirty joke,
Let’s go to my place,
to pass the season
All the girls have
two stars in their eyes,
but the Mexican girls
surely are the most beautiful!
(the others got this one pretty much right.)
The cockroach, the cockroach,
Isn’t able to go now [go in the sense of a car running]
Because it doesn’t have, because it lacks,
Some little paws to run with [run, again, in the sense of a car]
The cockroach just died,
Now they are taking it to be buried
between four vultures,
and a mouse for a sexton [church gravedigger]
:eek: No way! Way?
Sorry, that should be “He told him a dirty joke.”
The site linked to by muppetsoup has the following text:
Which means:
They say that “The Cockroach” was the name of the car of Pancho Villa, one of the most famous revolutionaries during the epoch of Mexico’s Revolution. There are many verses to the song, and many reasons to explain why the cockroach can’t run. Some say it can’t run because it lacks gasoline to burn, others that it lacks a cigarette to smoke, the best known version in Mexico is that it doesn’t have marijuana to smoke. With my students I sing that it lacks a leg to walk on.
The cockroach, the cockroach
isn’t able to run now,
because it lacks, because it doesn’t have,
a leg to walk on.
Something that makes me laugh,
is Pancho Villa without a shirt
Carranza’s soldiers have already run away
Because Villa’s soldiers are coming.
(chorus)
When a man loves a woman
and she doesn’t love him,
it’s like a bald man
finding a comb in the street.
The neighbor woman across the way
was called Dona Clara
And if I hadn’t died,
it’s probable she will be called.
[Or some such; being partly in imperfect subjunctive without pronouns, this verse is a little difficult to figure out.]
The site linked to by Jomo Momo has endless verses about various figures in the Mexican Revolution.
This song is discussed at some length in Katherine Ann Porter’s novel Ship Of Fools. It seems likely that hundreds of different verses were invented to go with those notes.
WRT marijuana, it happens to be right around 1910 (more or less Pancho Villa’s time) when people started using marijuana in New Orleans, and along the Mexican border, so the fact that Pancho Villa is in some way connected with the song makes me think that the marijuana verses must have been among the first to be sung with it. At least, my comments regarding the history of marijuana are based on various things I’ve heard and read over the years.