Escaping women: "Me voy pa'l pueblo"

The song featured here mentions maize. It doesn't grow here in Scotland. It needs a long, hot growing season. This was the second time my kids came across it, again in the south of England.

I have two memories of corn and Latin America. The first was when a Colombian conversation exchange partner told me they typically don't take the corn off the cob with a knife - they have a technique to take it off with their hands, which became an interesting, and less wasteful experiment. The second was at a cheap and good Colombian restaurant, Bambú, in Santander last year which served mostly local Colombians (and us) with a soup of chicken, whole hunks of corn, plaintain and other elements. The son of the owner of Tricolor in York, England told me it's called ajiaco.

While there are plenty of versions, some good, of Me voy pa'l pueblo none have the simplicity, charm or incomparable harmony of the Los Panchos version. Recall, it's not the common Latin American trope of so many songs of returning to the homeland or the village - so I suppose in that way, like Coplas pa'l pata 'i lana it's another subversive song though in this case it's about "let me out of here".

There is nothing too complicated here.  I had to look up huateque.  At a latin music festival I asked two young puertorriqueños.They were intelligent, fun-loving, interesting, justly enamoured by the music of their homeland. It was what they most missed. Most, latinos, I find, even if they speak fluent english, love to share their language with you. It feels to me like they have a chance to return to their original nature, like swimming freely instead of with some flotation device because most of us aren't quite ourselves in another language, though sometimes that can be helpful. The conversation with the girl became so animated involving culture and politics and history that I wished we had had it in English so that I could better absorb and remember it all.  Huateque was obviously not a commonplace word. For the guy it had connotations with food and celebration. bohío is not that common either, probably because those kind of mud shacks are less common now. It comes from the taíno word bohi.  

The song raises questions though.  You have to wonder, is the marriage on the rocks?  Usually we only hear his side of the story: here, as in traditional tango; and most salsa numbers, certainly those from its 1970s / 80s heyday, the songs are sung by men.  The same is true of recorded popular music from the 1930s onwards and of folk music until the relatively recent past.  There are exceptions.  Bullerengue from Caribbean Colombia is a female dominated form but still belongs to a poor and marginalised people descended from runaway slaves.   

In Me voy pa'l pueblo, what is the woman's view in his melodic complaint?  Is she going to put up and shut up, chained not even to the kitchen sink, but stuck beside the fire in her shack, roasting corn? Is she enjoying the peace and quiet? Time to have the neighbours round? Will she find a pata 'i lana? Will she become one?

Or is he henpecked, harassed, trapped and laying down the law?   He wants time off.  She clearly isn't invited.  As someone who has spent the last 17 years in a small county town surrounded by admittedly beautiful countryside but far from the social pleasures of the city, I have much sympathy with:

Quiero que sepas que no estoy dispuesta
A enterrar mi vida en un rincón
Es lindo el campo muy bien ya lo sé
Pero pa'l pueblo voy echando un pie

Clearly, he'll be a while - Y cuando vuelva se acabó el carbón.  This was an odd phrase and that is how I rationalised it.  By the time he gets back the charcoal she used to roast the corn will be out.  Then I was kindly alerted that it means more generically, things are finished.  This might be the party, possibly the relationship?

He must, afer all, be really miserable.  He uses what I call a broken phrasal verb (correctly, a reflexive phrasal verb): "I'm going to cheer myself up".  We have other phrasal verbs of this kind: Pull yourself together, calm yourself down, psych myself up etc.

But it doesn't do justice do the more emotional castellano "I'm going to make my whole soul happy". 

It is a very different culture.  I don't quite see the people of the nations of Britain readily shout in joy: "I'm going to make my whole soul sing."   It' just ain't us.

[Whistling livestock]

Chorus:

Me voy pa'l pueblo
I'm going to town

Hoy es mi día
Today is my day

Voy a alegrar toda el alma mía
I'm going to cheer myself  up.

Me voy pa'l pueblo
I'm going to town

Hoy es mi día
Today is my day

Voy a alegrar toda el alma mía
I'm going to cheer myself up.

Verse:

Tanto como yo trabajo
Because I work

Y nunca puedo irme al vacilón
I never get to go out and have fun

No se lo que le pasa a esta guajira
I don't know what's wrong with this country girl

Que no le gusta el huateque y el ron ["son" in some other versions].
Who doesn't like partying and music.

Ahora mismo la voy a dejar
Right now, I'm going to leave her

En su bohío asando maíz
In her hut roasting corn

Me voy pa'l pueblo a tomarme un galón
I'm going to town to drink a gallon

Y cuando vuelva se acabó el carbón.
And when I return, the party will be over.

Chorus

Desde el día que nos casamos
Since the day we got married

Hasta la fecha trabajando estoy
I've been working right up until today.

Quiero que sepas que no estoy dispuesta
I want you to know that I'm not willing

A enterrar mi vida en un rincón
To bury my life in a corner

Es lindo el campo muy bien ya lo sé
Yes, the countryside is lovely

Pero pa'l pueblo voy echando un pie
But I'm heading to town

Si tú no vienes mejor es así
So much the better if you don't come

Pues yo no sé lo que será de mí
Because I don't know what will become of me.

Chorus

With thanks to JS for his remarks.