Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Day 175 and Day 176 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
I've dreaded this chapter of the Songbag—Mexican Border Songs. And although I've tried learning the Spanish, I'm failing. So, I'm going to do the first verse and chorus of the original Spanish (in my halting, bad Spanish) and then do the song in its English translation. This is an important chapter and the Spanish songs are due their rightful place. This chapter, to me, show's the inclusion Sandburg represents in his song collection of the United States.
Sandburg writes:
"Dark women are good as gold;
Brunettes like silver win;
The blondes are only copper,
And the light ones only tin.
"God made the swarthy women;
A silversmith the white ones;
The dark brunettes, a tailor;
A cobbler the black-as-night ones.
"In his book, "The Land of Poco Tempo," Charles Lummis gives these verses as instances of epigrammatic folk utterances, proverbial rhymes, dichos. Nearly every Mexican sometimes has made a dicho, and the fittest of them survive, Lummis tells us. They include off-hand oddities such as this:
"Lovable eyes of coffee hue,
Give me a kiss
Of faith all true.
"And they may proclaim lines of highly serious mood:
"There is no better friend than God,
This is clear and past denying;
For the dearest may betray,
The most truthful may be lying.
"We are not surprised that in the song of La Cucaracha (The Cockroach), there is variety of theme. Sunny Spain heard the likes of some of the verses before they married a new tune in Mexico. And for understanding the banter and satire of other stanzas one would require knowledge of the careers of Pancho Villa and Zapata besides an acquaintance with Mexican political and revolution- ary history. In 1916 in Chicago I heard the tune and two or three stray verses of La Cucaracha from Wallace Smith and Don Magregor, both of whom as newspaper correspondents with a streak of outlaw in them, had eaten frijoles with Villa and slept under Pancho's poncho, so to speak. Also T.K.Hedrick from down Texas way sang the Cockroach song in Mexican. However, we must not assume that a cockroach is what the Mexican means in singing these verses. It may be a pet name, “The Little Dancer” we are told by Alice Corbin. ForF.S.Curtis, Jr.,of the Texas Folklore Society observes, "A whole dissertation might be written upon the fact that a cucaracha may be either a cockroach or a little, dried-up old maid, and that the term was also used as a nickname for the late Venustiano Carranza; and considerable space might be devoted to explaining that marihuana is a weed, which, when smoked, is capable of producing serious narcotic effects and even causing a homicidal mania." Then he queries significantly, ”But of what benefit is such stuff to the songs of New Mexico?” The text here is from Curtis. He says of the tune, “It strongly suggests a sixteenth century origin, especially with the guitar accompaniment usually used." "
FURTHER NOTE: The earliest known appearance of this song in print is as one of two songs in Canciones Mexicanas, published April 27, 1916, by Enrique Munguia.
A Mexican has recalled the generally similar music and words of La Cucaracha that he had heard in 1885 in Mexico at the age of 5; see Vicente T. and Virginia R. R. de Mendoza, Folklore de San Pedro Piedra Gorda. (from The Book of World-Famous Music (James J. Fuld)
Day 175 and Day 176 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
I've dreaded this chapter of the Songbag—Mexican Border Songs. And although I've tried learning the Spanish, I'm failing. So, I'm going to do the first verse and chorus of the original Spanish (in my halting, bad Spanish) and then do the song in its English translation. This is an important chapter and the Spanish songs are due their rightful place. This chapter, to me, show's the inclusion Sandburg represents in his song collection of the United States.
Sandburg writes:
"Dark women are good as gold;
Brunettes like silver win;
The blondes are only copper,
And the light ones only tin.
"God made the swarthy women;
A silversmith the white ones;
The dark brunettes, a tailor;
A cobbler the black-as-night ones.
"In his book, "The Land of Poco Tempo," Charles Lummis gives these verses as instances of epigrammatic folk utterances, proverbial rhymes, dichos. Nearly every Mexican sometimes has made a dicho, and the fittest of them survive, Lummis tells us. They include off-hand oddities such as this:
"Lovable eyes of coffee hue,
Give me a kiss
Of faith all true.
"And they may proclaim lines of highly serious mood:
"There is no better friend than God,
This is clear and past denying;
For the dearest may betray,
The most truthful may be lying.
"We are not surprised that in the song of La Cucaracha (The Cockroach), there is variety of theme. Sunny Spain heard the likes of some of the verses before they married a new tune in Mexico. And for understanding the banter and satire of other stanzas one would require knowledge of the careers of Pancho Villa and Zapata besides an acquaintance with Mexican political and revolution- ary history. In 1916 in Chicago I heard the tune and two or three stray verses of La Cucaracha from Wallace Smith and Don Magregor, both of whom as newspaper correspondents with a streak of outlaw in them, had eaten frijoles with Villa and slept under Pancho's poncho, so to speak. Also T.K.Hedrick from down Texas way sang the Cockroach song in Mexican. However, we must not assume that a cockroach is what the Mexican means in singing these verses. It may be a pet name, “The Little Dancer” we are told by Alice Corbin. ForF.S.Curtis, Jr.,of the Texas Folklore Society observes, "A whole dissertation might be written upon the fact that a cucaracha may be either a cockroach or a little, dried-up old maid, and that the term was also used as a nickname for the late Venustiano Carranza; and considerable space might be devoted to explaining that marihuana is a weed, which, when smoked, is capable of producing serious narcotic effects and even causing a homicidal mania." Then he queries significantly, ”But of what benefit is such stuff to the songs of New Mexico?” The text here is from Curtis. He says of the tune, “It strongly suggests a sixteenth century origin, especially with the guitar accompaniment usually used." "
FURTHER NOTE: The earliest known appearance of this song in print is as one of two songs in Canciones Mexicanas, published April 27, 1916, by Enrique Munguia.
A Mexican has recalled the generally similar music and words of La Cucaracha that he had heard in 1885 in Mexico at the age of 5; see Vicente T. and Virginia R. R. de Mendoza, Folklore de San Pedro Piedra Gorda. (from The Book of World-Famous Music (James J. Fuld)
