Spanish Music

Cafe Society
1

Hi SD,

My girlfriend’s family is from El Salvador. They have introduced me to a lot of Latino music.

My question today is about Spanish lyrics. In a majority of popular Latino songs, the lyrics are very much a “story” or “stream of consciousness”. It’s difficult to explain. In Western music, things are often concise in comparison. We tend to have a couple of lines that rhyme and express a specific point. Then we have a chorus. It’s fairly straightforward. But in a large amount of popular music in the Spanish language, the singer just kind of talks his or her way through a long monologue, that may or may not rhyme. And there is often liberty with rhythm of syllables. One sentence may be short and the next one may be long, and not rhyme, or maybe rhyme indirectly. This strikes me as strange because Spanish has a rich vocabulary that is perfectly capable of rhyming (lots of words have similar endings (-ita, -ando, etc.). I am not judging the songs. I happen to love them. But I do find their style different and was wondering where it might come from. Are songs in other countries similar, and is the United States the outlier? Is rhyming universally seen as an asset to songwriting? To me, in America, rhyming lyrics are often viewed as superior to non-rhyming lyrics, implying more “talent” in the songwriter. Are all languages equally accessible to rhyme? Please transfer to Cafe Society if appropriate.

Thanks, Dave

2

Moved to Cafe Society.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

3

Spanish songs ARE western songs, Western != Anglosaxon.

4

OK, I find it hilarious that the OP is complaining about other people writing songs like he writes his OPs.

That said, you for starters appear to be unfamiliar with Spanish rhyming rules. Those examples you provide? In Spanish using those for rhymes is considered making ripios - a form of poetry so low it eats the dog’s leftovers. A lot of rhymes which are valid in English would not be in Spanish.

Rima asonante: only vowels from the last stressed syllable until the end of the verses rhyme. In poetry analysis, indicated with small letters.
Rima consonante: both vowels and consonants rhyme, from the last stressed syllable until the end of the verses. Indicated with capitals.

I just nabbed a song at random from a Spanish singer, songwriter and poet. Joaquín Sabina, first few verses of A mis cuarenta y diez, a song which is very much a “stream of consciousness without a chorus”:

A mis cuarenta y diez,
Cuarenta y nueve dicen que aparento,
Más antes que después,
He de enfrentarme al delicado momento
De empezar a pensar
En recogerme, de sentar la cabeza,
De resignarme a dictar testamento
(perdón por la tristeza).

Rhyme: aBaB cDBD… the whole song is a string of cuartetas de métrica irregular, each of which has its own rhyme (the second cuarteta of that pair happens to link its third to the consonantes of the previous cuarteta, but that’s not a repeated motif). All of them are consonantes on second and fourth; most are asonantes on first and third.

Is it his most… “wrought” song. Well, no. Dude has published books of sonetos (do not confuse with sonnets, they’re different forms even if both descend from the same Italian one) and songs which are a lot more straightjacketed than this one. But it’s still a lot more formal than someone unfamiliar with the forms may think.

Complaining about the poetic forms of another language is pretty absurd in general, but when the language you’re familiar with measures poetry in feet and the one you’re complaining about does so in syllables, and when the two languages have different notions about what’s “a proper rhyme”, it becomes absurd squared. We’ve had similar complaints about French lyrics, for example: again, their rhyming rules and the way they measure verses are different from the way English does.

5

Where am I complaining? I understand what you are saying, Nava, and I appreciate the information. Is it a crime to be ignorant?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: Hasta Que Te Conoci.

It doesn’t really rhyme, which isn’t a bad thing at all, because it’s a beautiful song. I found your information about poetry and rhyming in Spanish very helpful. I feel Hasta Que Te Conoci is representative of a significant portion of Latino music, that tells a story and just plays chords over it. Could it be analogous to country music in any way? Transcribing Latino pop music would be more complicated, because thoughts are often expressed without an internal rhythm. Take many American pop songs. Lady Gaga, Queen, Beatles, Billy Joel. In many cases, they fit the lyrics to the rhythm scheme. It’s of more importance to their songwriting process. Don’t get me wrong, Nava. I am not complaining or asserting superiority of what is familiar to me. And I freely confess I have come across that way in some of my other threads to which you have contributed!

But I would like to know the origin of this style of songwriting, and why the prioirites in songwriting are so different when comparing Latino and American music.

Dave

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No, the song Hasta que te conocí is characteristic of a style of music, ballad, or pop ballad. A few other slow song types are also a bit in that style (some tangos, for example).
I think it is more you haven’t been exposed to different types of music, and in part like Nava said, perhaps you also aren’t familiar enough to realize that the songs ARE rhyming and have cadence/rhythm.

7

Yea, no… Re-reading this, you don’t realize that in many songs, the lyrics are fitting the rhythm scheme of the music, they have internal rhythm, rhyme, and cadence. They’d have to, otherwise it wouldn’t be that style.

8

I understand now, thanks. So it’s a ballad. That makes sense. So why is it that every American pop ballad I hear has some sort of rhyme, but Spanish ballads just talk and talk until the chorus? Can you give me one English Language “pop ballad” that does something similar?

Btw, Hasta Que Te Conoci only “rhymes” at the chorus. I’m asking about the narrative part at the verses, anyway. I have no problems with how Spanish rhymes. I understand the nature of the language implies rhyme without worrying about the endings of words matching rhythmically. I’m just trying to find parallels in other genres.

9

Ehr… are we talking about the song by Juan Gabriel, covered by Maná and Marc Anthony? Because it does rhyme. The rhymes are both irregulares and asonantes, but they are there. Does it follow English rhyming rules? No. Or English measuring rules. Because - it’s not in English.

The reason all those terms are in italics: I’m remembering that time KarlGrenze mentioned a book in Spanish whose title was completely aliterativo. And I asked “hah, is the rest of the book equally alliterative?” And gracer said “uh? It’s not alliterative!”

Me: :confused: m-w.com is my friend… ¡Ostras, Pedrín! Turns out that aliterativo <> alliterative. The Spanish term includes the whole word, the English one only includes its first phoneme, and the English term for Spanish aliteración is asonance - in Spanish, asonancia is a type of rhyme. So, when I am running an analysis in Spanish using Spanish definitions, the words go in italics even if they happen to be spelled identically to an English term. The spelling may be the same, but the definition is the Spanish one.

You’re applying English rules to Spanish. The answer to your question “does every language have its own rules?” is “yes”. The answer to “why don’t English rules work for [insert language]” is “that’s part of what makes them different languages”. And the answer to “why can’t [insert language] songwriters follow the rules of my language when writing in their own” is… “there’s no reason why they should”, and the question is offensive because it assumes that they should, it stems from the notion that your rules are The Rules. They’re not.

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Thanks Nava!