If you'll excuse me I'll get in
though I'm not invited
but in my field, a barbecue
is of nobody and of everyone.
I'm gonna sing my way
after I ate stake.
I have no God to ask
for an excuse this time,
and I can't apologize
if I haven't disrespect yet;
I'll see when I'm done;
but that's another issue.
I know many will say
I'm very insolent
if I set my thought
to the way I chose,
but I always was that way;
I gallop against the wind.
I carry it in my blood
since my great great grandfather.
People of feet on the ground
were my forefathers;
creoles of four provinces
and mixed with natives.
My grandpa was a cart driver,
my dad was a horse breaker;
they never looked for a doctor
because they healed themselves with herbs
or listening the murmurs
of some music of my youth.
As a good country ranch
never missed a guitar,
of those that seem nothing
but are sounding.
According to the song and the hour
the soul was left wore out.
My dad was knowledgeable
because of the much he walked.
And after he sang
he got the guitar out of tune,
and put a poncho on it
"so he doesn't talk a lot..."
Blood has reasons
that make the veins swell.
Pain over pain and pain
make someone yell.
Sand is a handful
but there are mountains of sand
I don't know if my singing is pretty
or if it comes out a bit sad;
I never was a thrust, and there isn't
a more ordinary plumage.
I'm a pirate bird
who doesn't know the bird seed.
I fly because I don't crawl,
because crawling is the ruin;
I make nest in a thorn tree
like on the mountains
without listening to the nonsense
of who flies like a chicken.
I don't bring myself like that
to the flowered gardens.
I accidentally live aware
for not stepping on the stick.
There are birds who by themselves
get caught for being boastful.
Though I suffered a lot
prudence doesn't shackle me.
It's a false experience
to live trembling to everything.
Each one has a way;
rebellion is my science.
I was born poor and I live poor
that's why I'm delicate.
I'm with the ones on my side
all working hard evenly
to make new what is old
and see the world changed.
I'm an average Joe,
I'm not a greenhouse flower.
I'm like the clover of La Pampa,
I grow without making noise.
I squeeze against the weed
and that's how I endure the pampero 1
Accustomed to the hills
I never make myself dizzy,
and if I feel myself praised
I leave slowly.
But who is boastful
pays to make himself note.
If somebody calls me Sir,
I thank the homage;
but, I'm a gaucho among them
and I'm nothing among the wise.
And are for me the insults
they do to the civilians.
Vanity is a bad weed
that poisons all the patch.
One needs to be aware
handling the hoe,
but there's the man
who waters it even at the door.
Work is a good thing,
is the best thing of life;
but life is lost
by working on a foreign field.
Some work of the thunder
and the rain is for the others.
I worked in a quarry
of stones to sharpen.
They knew to pay forty
for each polished stone,
and it was sold at six pesos
in this of the negotiation.
As soon as the sun came up
I was already hammering,
and between two I was holding
the great stones
and because of those stones
I shattered my hands.
Some other time I was a baker
and a lumberjack in a quebracho grove;
I loaded salt blocks
and also peeled canes,
and a handful of other deeds
for my best or my worst.
Trying to civilize myself
I was a clerk helper;
I wrote with little letters
to not waste seals,
and it was also short
the salary I received.
Tired of many miseries
I went to Tucumán.
Robles, alders, myrtles,
and axe with the carobs.
For two with fifty! It was a robbery
for one to have that desire.
Without being fixed in a place
I did any kind of job,
and so it happened that one day
I was doing like a great kiskadee
I met a mule driver
who came from Salta.
I felt like walking
and I agreed on the foreman,
and so, suddenly
the man asked me:
Do you have a mule? Of course
I said. And lots of hunger.
After a week
I went to the tops of mountains,
slopes, hills and hillsides
always on the west side,
drinking watershed water
and bearing the sun.
Maybe someone else had walked
as much as I did,
and I swear, believe it,
that I've seen so much poverty,
that I thought sadly:
God wasn't there.
A cow tumbled
because of the dimwittedness,
and the prayer found us
skinning and doing a barbecue;
since that day, friend
my knife wore out.
I shook of the frost
when I went down of the Andes,
and I've been in big ranches
taking care of some horses;
trumpet, cover and hat
but for the workmen, from where?
The workmen, to the waste ground,
the boss, in Buenos Aires.
We, the neck exposed
with the wet faces,
and the wintering farm
more brilliant than a friar.
The farm owner had
also his reedbeds,
and on autumn
we collected the rags,
and we weren't going down
leaving the rocky grounds.
They were gathering us there
in sets with other creoles,
each one looking for his hole
where to build his den,
and so we spent life
treated harsh and without support.
Nothing was lacking there:
wine, coffee and sandals.
I indeed had moved my feet
in gatos and chacareras.2
The things were hard only
at the time of earning.
What an uneven life!
Everything is cruelty and lies;
Peeling cane is a feat
for who was born for harshness.
There was a single sweetness
and it was inside the cane.
It was a consolation for the poor
to smell like wine.
Great men and boys
like cursed in life,
slaves to the drink
they were getting drunk.
Sad Sundays of the furrows
the ones I've seen and lived!
Wasted and asleep
they would wake up in the sand,
maybe they would dream
with death or oblivion...
Men from La Rioja, Santiago,
Salta and Tucuman,
with the machete in the hand
they were turning mature canes over,
spending their bitterness
and enduring like brothers.
A ranch with maloja 3roof,
habitat of the peeler!
In the middle of that harshness
there was always a guitar,
by which the poor consoles himself
singing love stanzas.
Me too, who since little
I was raised with the singing,
I asked help more than once
and I sang to the workmen.
What was happening to them
it was happening to me too!
When I learned to sing
I made joints with few rolls.
And by the shore of a brook
under the branch of a willow
I grew looking at the riverbed
my dreams of poor creole.
When I felt a joy;
when pain hit me;
when a doubt bit
my countryman heart,
from the bottom of the plains
a song came and healed me...
In those times were happening
things that no longer happens.
Each one had his singing
or a nightfall stanza.
Ways of healing the wound
that bleeds on the move.
Some sang good...
Others, bad, more or less...
But they weren't foreign songs,
thought they weren't marked.
And everyone had fun
playing guitar until the dawn.
Sometimes a teacher came,
from those literate towns;
he gathered troops and verses
that were going then to a book
and the man was getting rich
with what the others thought.
The workmen made verses
with their old pains.
Then come the sirs
with a notebook in a hand,
they copy the country singing
and boast of being writers.
The creole takes care of his charter,
his guitar and his woman;
he feels he faces a duty
every time he gives his hand;
and though he's knowledgeable for all
only the singing will lose.
Stanzas that made him company
in the desert ravines,
smells of dead flowers
and lived risings,
were the lights on
for his awake nights!...
He gets upset if he loses
a muzzle, a whip,
but he doesn't feel rage
if by listening a song
a town man comes and steal
his best love song.
Surely, if one thinks,
finds the knot to the skein,
because the oldest stanza,
like the root of life,
has the soul as a den,
where complains make nest.
That's why the man when he sings
with true emotion,
throws his pain outside
for the wind to take it,
and so, even for a moment
he gets relieved.
Is not that he doesn't love his song
nor he despises his song.
It's like when a damage
in the night of the plains
makes the countryman slack
and the wind carries his crying.
In the singing matters,
life is teaching
that only flies
the stanza that is light.
Always hunts pigeons
whoever is hunting...
But if the song is a protest
against the boss law,
it crawls from workman to workman
in a deep murmur,
and goes level with the weeds
like a click in a raid.
A thousand songs can be lost
where they sing love,
verses of joy, pleasures,
races and fun;
whispers of hearts
and lyrical sufferings.
But if the stanza tells
the story of the countrymen,
where the workman turns on the wheel
of the suffered miseries,
that one, stays attached
like a thistle in the memory!
What made us graceful
maybe can be forgotten;
the years in its passing
will change the thoughts.
But anxieties and worries
are marks that will last...
These things I think
doesn't come from the wit.
To make my experience
I chew before I swallow.
It was long the walking
from where I got thee warning.
If one pulses the guitar
to sing stanzas of love,
of horses, of tamer,
of the hills and the stars,
they say: How beautiful!
He sings like an angel!
But if one, like Fierro,4
goes thinking over there,
the poor comes closer
with the ears on the alert,
and the rich peeps the door
and runs away.
He must trace well his land
who calls himself a singer,
because only the impostor
gets cozy on every footprint.
May he picks a single star
who wants to be a sower...
In the trance of choosing
may the man looks inside,
where meetings are made
between thoughts and feelings.
Then may he goes anywhere
with the conscience as a center.
There are different piles,
some big, some small.
If goes to the rich pile
the poor who thinks little,
behind the mistakes
come the harms.
I come from way below,
and I'm not way up.
I give my song to the poor
and so I become happy,
because I'm in my element
and there I worth for what I am.
If I ever sang
before big belly bosses,
I spurred the deep
reason of poorhood.
I don't betray my people
for applauses or foot stomps.
Though I sing on every path
I have a favorite path.
I always sang shaking
the sorrows of the countrymen,
the exploitation and the outrage
of my loved brothers.
For things to change
I looked for a path and I got lost;
time after, I found out
and I walked on the right track.
Before anything, I'm Argentinian;
and I followed my flag...!
I'm from the north and the south,
from the plains and the shore;
and may nobody offends
if there's a thousand grams in a kilo.
Anywhere I'm calm
but I'm wild when I'm saddled.
The singer must be free
to develop his science.
Without looking for convenience
nor enlist with godfathers.
From those dark paths
I already have experience.
I sing, for being old
songs that are eternal;
and even seem modern
by what we see in them.
We get covered with the song
to make the winter warm...
And I sing to the tyrants
neither by order of the boss.
The rascal and the liar
may they sort out their way
with bought payadors
and hall singers.
By the strength of my singing
I know cell and prison.
With a peerless cruelty
I've been beaten more than once,
and thrown to the jail
like garbage to the dump.
They can kill a man.
they can stain his face,
they can burn his guitar.
But the ideal of life,
is that lit wood
that nobody can quench!
The evil are rising
everything they find over there;
like corn seeds
they sow the worst examples,
and the country's decency
temple falls apart.
Behind the gold noise
come the lazy like a collector;
there's always a weak who sells himself
for a dirty coin;
but there's always in my beloved land
countrymen who defends it.
Singer who sing for the poor
won't shut up even dead.
Because wherever goes
the song of that man
there will be a countryman
who makes him resurrect.
The farm boss boasts
of cowboyism and arrogance.
He believes that is extravagant
that his workman lives better.
But, that man doesn't know
that he has a farm because of him.
The one ho has his coins
does very well in keeping them safe;
but if he wants to increase them
may he doesn't play deaf before the law.
That on every thick stew
corns become corncob.
One day, without a job,
I was by Tucuman,
and in an inn, where go
early morning singers,
I came close to the payada
that was always my eagerness.
Even missing the riding
I stacked to an instrument.
And after a while
I opened the door to a baguala,5
with a thin stanza
of those that the wind take.
Maybe was the guitar
So pretty it sounded!
My heart rose up
sadness of the roads,
and I cursed the destiny
that gave me so much pain.
A man came near
and said; What are you doing here?
Travel to the city
they will understand you;
there you will have fame, pleasure
and money to gift.
Why did I listened him!
It was devil's voice!
Buenos Aires, gringo city,
had me pressured.
Everyone were staying at one side
like body to the needle.
And I didn't came poor
because I had new sandals.
The old one for the rain
I put them in the saddlebag;
grey colored pants
and a frock coat.
Jumping from radio station to another
I was, imagine it.
I spent four months
in unlucky rounds;
nobody assured anything,
and I was left without money.
I sold my pretty saddlebags.
My guitar, I sold it!
I my poverty deary me,
I'd like to keep it.
So much costed me to buy it
But anyway I lost it all!
Guitar, where are you,
what hands are playing you.
Whole nights thinking
even as a consolation,
that a song of this ground
be what comes out of you...!
When the corn is in fallow
it shows a shiny color;
the threads, like a nylon
boast with their pretty things.
But they lower their heads
if the coal catches them.
It happened to me too
in those gone times;
young, strong, boastful,
and when the cheese ran out,
I returned in a sad comeback
with the soul full of oblivion.
Things of youth...
God, where are you!
Now that I'm all grey
of changing my hair so much,
I remember those sleeplessness
but I don't look back.
I returned to Tucuman
to suffer again.
And in that of going and seeing
many r¡years will pass
among pains, delusions,
hopes and pleasure.
But, it wasn't wasted time,
according to what I saw after.
Because I knew well how is
the life of the countrymen.
Of all of them I felt like a brother,
thoroughly.
I always remember the times
I spent swaggering,
the hills I crossed
looking for what I couldn't find,
and sometimes I remained
by those fields standing.
Life has been teaching me
what a guitar worths;
for it I've been on parties
maybe made a mess,
and I almost get caught by the vice
with their invisible claws.
At least I carry inside
what the land gave to me.
Motherland, race or whatever,
but it was saving me,
and so, I kept walking
by the roads of God.
The thing was in thinking
that when pulsing the instrument
one hast to give with feeling
all the field strength
But nobody releases anything
if they have nothing inside
The guitar is a hollow stick
and to play something good
the man must be full
of internal brightness
To sow eternal stanzas
life is a good plot!
If praying gives consolation
to who needs them
Like a christian in a mass
or a wild man in the mount
I pray in the horizons
when the evening falls
The pampa remains silent
when the light fades
The southern screamer and the ostrich
are searching for the thickness
and in the plain gets bigger
the loneliness of the ombu tree
Then, like a poncho
one gets wrapped by the land
from the plains to the mountains
a shadow spreads
and the soul understands
the things that the world has
There's the right moment
of thinking of the destiny
If the man is a pilgrim
or he searches for love or fondness
or he serves a sentence
of dying in the roads
In the north I saw things
that I'll never forget
I saw gauchos fighting
with caronero knives
or with cane blades
that one is afraid of seeing them
The countryman rarely kills
because he doesn't have that instinct
The creole mourning comes
for not running away a little
He tells that he isn't one armed
and haves fun fighting
There's no bloodthirsty hill man
nor a chattering coya
The ablest tamer
never tells his feats
and they're not tempted by the cane
because the wine is better
Every field likes
a way of fighting
And who wants to swagger
he must warn first
Because for getting out
one must know how to get in
They fist fight
like anywhere
but it's a different thing
to use the field ways
There things get heavy
like don Narvarte said
Cordoba man, for the stones
Rioja man, for the whips
Chilean, for the horse kick
Salta man, with knife in hand
And the Tucuman man is the king
For head fighting
The creole man always fights
at night and half stained
What a shame, man
that sometimes for a tuna
starry skies and moonlight nights
get cloudy
A song comes out easy
when one wants to sing
It's a matter of seeing and thinking
about the world things
If the river is wide and deep
who knows to swim can cross it
Let the others sing happiness
if they lived happily
I also knew
to sleep in those ruses
But were much more the years
of received bumps
Nobody can point me out
that I sing because I'm bitter
If I've been through what I've been through
I want to serve as a warning
Wandering isn't a science
but neither a sin
I wandered through the world
I crossed lands and seas
Without borders that stop me
And on every shelter
I sang, dear land
your sorrows and joys
Sometimes, came to the singing
like cows to the water
to listen to my stanzas
men of all the corners
braiding their feelings
to the beat of the guitar
Woe is who doesn't know
the beauty of the singing
The darkest of lives
the one with more damages
will always find in the song
consolation for their sadness
They say they don't have songs
the rivers that are deep
But I learned in this world
that who has more deepness
sings better for being deep
and makes honey from his bitterness
With the stumbles of the road
the loads start to bend
But is a law that in the long road
they must adjust
And who forgets that
will have bad times
Friends, I'm leaving
this done part of mine
In the preferred way
of a milonga of La Pampa
I sang in a plain way
certain things of life
Now I'm leaving, I don't know where
every path is good for me
Since the fields are of no one
I cross them with a small gallop
I don't need a den
I can sleep in the open
There's always a ruined room
in the slope of a range
And while I keep going this war
of injustices for me
I'll think from there
songs for my land
And even if they take my life
or jail my freedom
And even if they burn
my guitar in the fireplaces!
My songs will live
in everyone's soul!
Don't name me, because it's a sin
And don't talk about my trills
I'm leaving with my destiny
to where the sun fades
Maybe someone will remember
that an Argentinian sang here!
1. A cold and strong wind in Argentina2. Argentinian folk dances3. residue of burned sugarcane leaf4. Martin Fierro5. Argentinian folk song