At the end of the song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Crosby and Nash sing “doo-doo-doo, doo-doo…doo! doo! doo-doo doo-doo…[repeat]” while Stills sings a few lines in what sounds (to me) like Spanish. Does any of you know what these last lyrics are? Do you have a link to them? Any bilingual dopers willing to listen to the song and transcribe? It’s one of my favorite songs, and I just bought the guitar tabs to it, but darn it, those last few lines aren’t in there.
From a lyrics website:
Wow! Thank you very very much, Mr. Blue Sky! Muchas gracias!
De nada!
(thus is the extent of my Spanish)
Hopefully, some native Spanish speaker will show up, but I think the translation is a bit off.
I’d translate it like this:
What beauty Cuba brings me,
The queen of the caribbean Sea,
There’s no blood in the sun or sky.
Oh, how sad I cannot go.
Oh go, oh go, go.
Reina is queen.
sangreahi, I suppose that’d be ‘sangre alli’.
‘Smile’ is ‘sonrisa’ in Spanish.
Um…No.
Stephen Stills talked about it in an interview. He does variate the lyrics when performing the song live but on the original recording below are the correct lyrics:
He purposely paused between certain syllables in each line to obscure the lyrics.
"que lin----da, me recuerda Cuba
la Rei----na de la Mar Caribe
Quiero so----lo visitarle alli
y que tri—ste que no puedo ¡Vaya!
Oh va! Oh va!
Wiki entry:
The final section (the coda) is sung in Spanish, starting at 6:34 until the song concludes. The “doo-doo-doo-da-doo” backing vocals are the best known segment of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, with Stills singing Spanish lyrics in the background. Somewhat apocryphally, Stills has said that he intentionally made the final stanzas unexpected and difficult, even using a foreign language for the lyrics, “just to make sure nobody would understand it” (not even Spanish speaking people)
¡Que linda! Me recuerda a Cuba
La reina de la Mar Caribe
Quiero sólo visitarla allí
Y que triste que no puedo. ¡Vaya!
O Va! O Va!
Right. Stills lived in Costa Rica as a child for a couple of years, but by his own admission (IIRC) the grammar is way off, on the studio version at least. No point in nitpicking here – (just one example: “que triste que no…” should take the subjunctive, “pueda”) – just a warning that you shouldn’t use this to learn or work on your Spanish!
The heavenly sun has lost its blush.
It is sad that I cannot go.
Remember that this was only a decade after the Cuban revolution. Stills was a teenager, and up until he was 14 years old Cuba was considered a fun and romantic holiday spot.