Bilingual In The Boonies » The Songs We Sing

Bilingual Music Playlist…with a dash of Freestyle and Celia.

Carrie — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:11:38 +0000

When la Nena and I are in the car together, the radio is usually stuck on the XM Kid’s Place Live Channel. I like the station. They play Indie kid songs and rarely do any of the songs make me want to plug my ears. Exceptions being Happy Noodle vs Sad Noodle and anything, I mean anything, by Randy Kaplan. (No matter how cute he is…)

Every once in a while as a song comes on, I say “Oh! I love this song!”

Maria finally figured out what leads to my joy: “Mama, you say that when you hear a song from when you were young.”

Snagged.

Sometimes, the XM folks stick an oldie, like Stand by Me, into the playlist.

So it is no surprise that every time I make a new playlist for Maria on the iPod, I sneak in some music I love, and want her to learn too. When she was 2, she could sing practically all the songs on the Talking Heads’ Little Creatures album.

I just made this playlist for her and stuck in Let the Music Play by Shannon. Remember her? Or maybe you had to be a kid in Jersey in 1984? And of course, I had to stick Celia in there. I decided to leave out I Want Candy. That’s for Mami’s playlist.

Anyway, we’re really loving some of these songs, especially Because it’s There, Bowl of Cherries and the Los Lobos version of Heigh-Ho from their Disney album. And, I love when Maria sings the Kumbia Kings:

No tengo dinero
Ni nada que dar
Lo unico que tengo es amor para amar

These playlists are a way for me to sneak Spanish into our lives with more frequency, because let me tell you, I have fallen down on the Speak Spanglish job.

What are you listening to?

In the meantime, I leave you with memories of Big Hair and Shoulder Pads. (I will be attending my 25th High School Reunion this year, so there’s more dance and freestyle in my future…)

Shannon – Let The Music Play
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Mamacita, ¿Dónde Está Santa Claus? and other Latino Holiday music

Carrie — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:36:00 +0000

The casa is muy loud these days. My parents and the pastelitos are here. That’s good, but it also means the decible level has peaked.

My mother brought her Rat Pack Christmas CD. To compete for airtime with Mami’s old men, I put together an IMix of holiday music that won’t make me want to stick palitroques in my ears.

Any other suggestions?

Dan Zanes: Te Quiero

Carrie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:59:00 +0000

Please, oh please, do yourself a bilingual little flavor and get Dan Zane’s latest album: Nueva York.

Downloaded it last night and we’re bailando today.

From his web site:

“This CD is the sound of my band and I working with our Latino friends here in Nueva York. While the conversations about who should and shouldn’t live here in the USA rages on, we’re having a 21st century party celebrating some of the amazing culture that’s come here from various parts of Latin America.
The spirit of collaboration and friendship has made this for me the most emotional and exciting of the Dan Zanes and Friends CDs. Did I mention that we ate great food and laughed a lot?
“Friends” for this musical party include Zanes’ group Colin Brooks, Sonia De Los Santos, John Foti, Saskia Sunshine Lane, and Elena Moon Park along with ranchera and jazz singer Lila Downs, singer and actress Daphne Rubin-Vega, Mexican trio The Villa-Lobos brothers, frequent Zanes collaborators The Rubi Theater Company, avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot and Afro-Colombian roots ensemble La Cumbiamba Eneye making ¡Nueva York! a wild, 21st century party of the sort that is sure to be springing up more and more as musicians and their friends build musical bridges with songs that can connect us all.
¡Vivan las canciones del mundo de habla hispana!

Viva Dan Zanes.
(and no one paid me to say that…)

La Vaca Lechera video for the nenes

Carrie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:57:00 +0000

La Vaca Lechera on YouTube.
(I’m the woman eating out of the condensed milk can.)

Squid Who?

Carrie — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:26:00 +0000

I moved to Nashville in 1991 to work as a general assignment reporter on the Metro desk. My reporter friends in Jersey, where I had been working and dying, teased me that I was going South to cover the rhinestone beat and Elvis sightings. None of that, but I did once write about a naked woman walking down Music Row.

The truth is, I thought I would be here just a couple of years. This place was another planet and I was the alien. But, we’re going on 17 years of residency.

I like it here.

As testament, I have made a Lens on Squidoo offering up some insider tips to visiting Nashville. It’s a love letter and a field guide. Visiting this place without the right map could indeed leave an impression different from the one I have. So, I Squidoo-ed for love. (Plus, as per my dad, lots of Cubanitos from Miami want to move to Tennessee. Well, here’s a guide to the coolest city in the state.)

And because I can’t get enough of a good thing, I also made a Lens about Los Pollitos Dicen.
I included links to traditional Latino children’s songs, YouTube videos, and the bilingual books and CDs we most love. This one is kind of a draft, so I will be adding more when there is time and brain power.

Please visit me and drop me a note over there.

Suggestions always are welcome. Everyone needs an editor.

By the way, please notice that Seth Godin left me a little note on the Nashville lens. Let’s just say, the holiday was made after that one. Maybe he writes notes to all the girls, but I’ll share.

World Wide Pollitos

Carrie — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:24:00 +0000

So, I am over here measuring and weighing packaging boxes, measuring the depth of a bib (yes, they want to know these things) and filling out more paperwork than required for a multi-million dollar real estate transaction. But, whatever. I’ll tattoo their logo on my bottom if they ask, as I am insanely happy that the e-mail I got several weeks ago from Gigantic National Retailer was neither fake, nor false start.

If all continues to move as expected Los Pollitos Dicen, our very own cha cha children’s t-shirts en espanol, will be on a national retail website before the end of the month.

Holy pio pio.

So, stay tuned for the announcement and gigantic link.

In other news, when I am not packaging and pureeing, I am listening to Maria sing new songs in Spanish, songs learned at her new school. A favorite seems to be Itsy Bitsy Spider.

La arana pequenita subio, subio, subio
Vino la lluvia y se la llevo
Salio el sol y pronto la seco
Y la arana pequenita subio, subio, y subio

Yesterday, she also made us play “Veo, veo” — a game in which she says something like “I see the color green” and then we guess which item. The whole event was conducted in Spanish and her father and I giggled with joy the entire time. It’s rare she is so fluid with her lengua.

And perhaps the most fun of all was when I asked her something in English and she shrugged and said: “No se.”

Ah grasshopper, but you do…

Cuban Lullaby

Carrie — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:36:00 +0000

In the seventh month of pregnancy, my editor gave me a touching gift: The CD Cuban Lullaby. I had never seen it before and when I glanced at the song titles, nothing struck me as familiar.

But that evening, as I waited in the drug store’s drive-through lane for horse pill-sized pre-natals, I slid the CD in. And then, the singer sung words that shook me so hard I started sobbing: Duermete mi nina, duermete mi amor, duermete pedazo de mi corazon….

Though I had not recognized the title, I recognized the words and tune as those sung to me by my grandmother. The memory had not been lost, but stored in the folds of my brain and released when the song started to play. Perhaps the strength of my sobs had something to do with the fact I was drowning in crazy-making mother-to-be estrogen, but really, I know it also had to do with the fact a woman I loved, and missed, had sung those same words to me many, many times. The child I was remembered, even if the adult had forgotten. How perfect to be given back the words just as my own child was to be born.

So, a few days ago when a lovely lady who reads the cositas de nada I spill onto the screen sent me a trove of links to Cuban videos and songs, I was thrilled and grateful. Music has been a big part of teaching Maria to speak excellent Spanglish. This reader, by the way, is storing up the songs and links for the day when she is an abuelita. She makes gift books of Cuban songs for children she knows and she said I could share the links with you.

There are more than 100 songs listed in this link, which contains sweet classics like Señora Santana, La Vaca Lechera and Había Una Vez (you know, the never-ending boat song), but so many others too that I, at least, had never heard. They’re about brujitos and chickens and this one, which promises to become a staple at my house:

Qué rico el baño!
Qué fresca el agua
El nené lindo
Feliz se baña!

If you don’t speak Spanish, it’s basically a “Isn’t bath time, great?” song. In my 3-year-old’s opinion, at times, bath time ain’t so great.

And then here are the videos, which she said are classics, or remakes of classics, from her 1960s Cuban childhood.

Vinagrito
El Soldadito de Plomo
Marinero quiero ser

Finally, this one, which used to pop onto TV at 7:55 p.m. to announce bedtime for all. Don’t we need this here in the states? Especially, for the Mami’s who stay up too late cruising the internet?

Buen provecho, all.

(Y gracias, otra vez, amiga)

Mami-approved Musica

Carrie — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 15:37:00 +0000

There was a great story in the paper Saturday morning about Kid Music that Won’t Force You to Stick Sharp Pencils in Your Ears.

The story heavily quotes Dan Zanes, formerly of the Del Fuegos, who has found success as a kiddie entertainer. His song, Queremos Bailar, is a hit around here and I have been known to sing it at the top of my lungs from the windows-up safety of my Goldfish-encrusted Accord.

Also mentioned in the story was this blog, Children’s Music That Rocks. It’s written by a librarian for the New York Public Library and it rocks.

The search for music I could live with, and which would not dull my daughter’s Music City-born palate for good taste, is the main reason I hooked up with iTunes. (That and the ability to download Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy.)

The only thing they need to improve is the ability to search for children’s songs in Spanish. But, I did score these, which we love:

If You’re Happy and You Know It by Maria del Rey
Boom, Boom by 3+2
And the most fabulous Los Pollitos Dicen version by Emilio Delgado. It is semi-performed here, just for you, by Maria Felice, then 2.5. (Please ignore the stage mother’s voice)

Al Tambor, sweet, simple and happy

Carrie — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 03:11:00 +0000

We live in the surrounds of Music City so it should be no surprise to hear me say that people here sing. It’s genetic. Even at the most casual of gatherings the instruments come out (and sometimes it’s just spoons and a harmonica) and everyone from the most unassuming soccer mom to the most sad-sack old guy belts it out. I’ve heard better voices on people at potlucks than on the radio. At times I have fantasized about getting a voice coach just so I can do more than clap.
But no. This Mami can’t sing. Even 15 years among the natives hasn’t helped.
And while Maria has of late begun to make up songs and sing about whatever she’s doing – “We’re going to eat and then my Mami’s going to give me milk’’ or “I love to jump, I love to jump, I love to jump!’’ – it appears the little one may not be winning an Academy of Country Music Award either.
But, bless her for singing. It’s a blast to hear her and while the two of us sound like a chorus of injured frogs, we sing all day.
The last few days we’ve been singing Al Tambor. The truth according to Google says it is a Panamanian song. We first heard it on a Jose-Luis Orozco CD. I love it. It is a sweet, fun and simple song and you change the name according to the audience.
Everybody now:

“Al tambor, al tambor, al tambor de la alegría,
Yo quiero que tú me lleves al tambor de la alegría.
Al tambor, al tambor, al tambor de la alegría,
Yo quiero que tú me lleves al tambor de la alegría.
Maria o Maria, Maria amiga mía,
Yo quiero que tú me lleves al tambor de la alegría.
Al tambor, al tambor, al tambor de la alegría,
Yo quiero que tú me lleves al tambor de la alegría.”

The songs we sing, an occasional series

Carrie — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 03:02:00 +0000

Back when Maria had 17 rolls and I could not sing Tortillitas para Mamá one more time, I googled the words to a Spanish pop song my favorite aunt taught me in the ’70s, María Isabel. Hurrah for Google, for there were the lyrics, found by simply typing in “vamos a la playa, calienta el sol.’’

Pure gold. The song has become the anthem that will make Maria laugh no matter what is happening. She especially likes it when I substitute “Isabel’’ for her two middle names and last name. I swear, I think it’s how she learned to say her whole name by the age of 17 months.

And how could one not love a chorus that goes
chi ri bi ri bi po po pom pom?

The words:

La playa estaba desierta,
el mar bañaba tu piel,
cantando con mi guitarra
para ti, María Isabel.
En la arena escribí tu nombre
y luego yo lo borré
para que nadie pisara
tu nombre, María Isabel.

Coge tu sombrero y póntelo,
vamos a la playa, calienta el sol.
Chi ri bi ri bi po po pom pom,
chi ri bi ri bi po po pom pom,
chi ri bi ri bi po po pom pom,
chi ri bi ri bi po po pom pom.

La luna fue caminando
junta a las olas del mar,
tenia celos de tus ojos
y tu forma de mirar.
Coge tu sombrero y póntelo…

And, thanks to YouTube, there’s now video of the band, Los Payos, here