Ideas Nuevas [English translation]

You have to learn to unlearn

It's not a contradiction, it's making things right1.

Not everything that can be seen is real,

Not everything that can be heard is true.

We should learn

That not everything we're taught makes us grow.

Forgive me, forgive my insistence, but

I like to sing

I let loose in melody2

What I should cry to.

Well, I learned that in this filth

Misery should not be silenced

Enough! Throw your cards down on the table3.

Life is like a game:

Enjoy yourself, it fills you all of a sudden,

But sometimes our luck fails.

I want to see us risk to increase what we have

And prove to each other that we can

Live on our own in our house4

Clean the militia off our covers

Live humble and free in our house

Let go of the teat and walk, thoughts flowing, and take the reigns

You have to learn to unlearn

It's not a contradiction, it's making things right.

Not everything that can be seen is real,

Not everything that can be heard is true.

We should learn

That not everything we're taught makes us grow.

There's a need for new ideas, contribute what you feel.

There's a need for new ideas, because custom hems us in.

The wind blows hard today, plunge your roots earthward

It approaches with the force of the hurricane, grab onto solid ground,

Don't let yourself be taken, don't let yourself be taken5, don't let yourself be programmed.

Grow your own ideas, grow your own ideas.

1. More literally, "it's to amend yourself."2. To trill or to warble are more direct translations of "trino," but are distractingly unusual descriptors in English.3. As the reciprocal of "keeping your cards close to your chest"4. I don't know if this is provocative in Puerto Rico. In broad swaths of Latin America, the idea that teenagers / young adults can or should live separate from their parents before marriage is met with considerable resistance. It's becoming normal, but in Mexico that happened over my mother's lifetime.5. In English it would be more normal to say "don't let yourself be taken in," but the juxtaposition with the hurricane works better without it.