Bandera by Aterciopelados. About illegal immigration.
Sangre americana by Bacilos, about immigrants making it in the US. Bacilos also has other songs about immigration.
A las tres, about a guy writing to his beloved (who remains in their home country).
En mi Viejo San Juan- Nostalgic song. Guy remembers growing up in Old San Juan, before he moved to the mainland… Depressing song (for me) because at the end he admits he won’t be able to return to his city before he dies.
Todos vuelven, mentions about returning to the home country, even if just in dreams…
Oh, and I’m partial to the following song by Fiel a la Vega, “El Wanabí” (The Wannabe). If only I knew my some of my coursework as easy as I know the letter to that song!
Fewer than you’d think, actually. There are plenty of songs about the country and how beautiful it is, and lots of others about farming and fighting and other outdoor activities, but the actually immigrant experience is mostly lacking. There certainly isn’t any yearning for the country left behind.
ETA: I’ve thought of one: this songfrom the 1974 musical Kazablan. The song’s about a Morrocan immigrant complaining that people used to show more respect back in Casablanca.
Good luck finding it but the song “I dream alone” by the Little River Band sings about moving from the England to Australia with these lyrics.
I was born near the factory where Henry wrote his name sometimes I could hear the whistle blow my father pushed his headlights thru that northern English rain he was proud of everything he drove. And mother’s hair was fashioned for that very special day she cried on board the liner and tried to wave good-bye five weeks of remembering those names we couldn’t say staring at the South Pacific sky.
-snip-
*As soon as we set foot on the sunburnt land the mountains all around us ran with fire my family knew right then that our best laid plans would have to reach a lot higher. *
It’s a good little song from an (imho) underrated band.
Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam is about Puerto Ricans emigrating to New York.
“And they wandered in from the city of Saint John without a dime”
Saint John = San Juan
The immigrants quickly become disenchanted as they are “hounded down to the bottom of a bad town amidst the ruins.”
One of SD’s greatest lines follows as “They learn to fear an angry race of fallen kings their dark companions.”
In the last stanza which is open to interpretation, I always viewed it as the emigrants while relaying their experiences to folks back home, they’re too proud to reveal what life is actually like thus perpetuating the 'glory of the Royal Scam."
Suspiros de España (Sighs of Spain, Spain’s Sighs) is a pasodoble which specifically talks about spending Christmas in the US during Prohibition ("…bought red wine with a prescription…" “…and hearing that music, there in a foreign land, we understood it was our sighs, Spain’s sighs…”). Songs about migration are very, very common in Spanish, but they don’t usually mention the country of reception: México lindo y querido ("…if I die abroad, tell them I’m asleep and take me home to be buried…") or Cuando salí de Cuba ("…I won’t be able to die, my heart is not here, I left it buried in the sand…") talk about living outside the country mentioned in the title, but not about where the singer now lives. Miña terra gallega (Siniestro Total’s cover of Sweet Home Alabama) talks about emigrating to the Caribbean and missing the grey, grey skies of home.
