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.
6/12/2026 A Laurel Canyon doc brought me here. Hadnt heard this song in 2 decades. One of my faves.
Original posted lyrics:
Que linda me la traiga Cuba,
la reina de la Mar Caribe.
Cielo sol no tiene sangreahi,
y que triste que no puedo vaya,
Oh va, oh va, va.
Corrected grammar
… la reina del mar caribe (“la mar” is French)
(El) Cielo (heaven or sky) Y (and) (el) sol (sun) no tienen (plural of have) sangre (blood) ahí (ahí means “there” & is pronounced a-EE. The “h” is silent.)
O, va, o va, va (we dont write, “oh”)
(You should really replace “no puedo vaya” (I cant go) with either “qué triste que no pueda ir” or “que triste que no pudiera ir”. They are both grammatically correct … but then, as you can see, you’d have to change “vaya” to its unconjugated verb, “ir” (to go")
Stills is notorious for changing the Spanish lyrics for the past 5 decades EVERY TIME he sings the song live! ¡Carajo!
Moral of the story: get a native speaker to write “foreign language” lyrics for your songs so as not to look like an idiot & then have 30 different websites pop up discussing all the grammatical errors you made! Common sense. No brainer. D’oh!
I am a Los Angeles born Puerto Rican 
& Cuban 
, now 72, & this is the way I have always interpreted the somewhat chaotic Spanish lyrics to this classic song. 