Chan chan (song)
Chan Chan is a song by the Cuban musician Compay Segundo . It became a worldwide success as the first track on the album Buena Vista Social Club , which Compay Segundo released together with Ry Cooder and Cuban artists such as Eliades Ochoa and Ibrahim Ferrer in 1997. The song, composed in 1984, had previously been recorded by himself and a few others. Composed in the style of Son , Chan Chan stands out for its distinctive bass line and the syncopated phrasing of the polyphonic singing.
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Like many Cuban songs, the piece offers pictorial motifs rather than a clear story arc. The refrain is reminiscent of the life of farm workers: “From Alto Cedro I am going to Marcané. When I arrive in Cueto, I go to Mayarí ”- Alto Cedro , Marcané , Cueto and Mayarí are villages in the province of Holguín in eastern Cuba, from which Compay Segundo came.
In the first verse, Chan Chan sounds like a love song: “I can't deny the feeling I have for you. My mouth is watering, I can't avoid it. ”The second stanza talks about a man, Chan Chan, and his girlfriend Juanica, who go to the beach to fetch sand for their house. Juanica sifts the sand, moving her bottom so that Chan Chan is ashamed. This motif comes from a Cuban story Compay Segundo heard at a young age. In the third and last verse it finally says: “Clear the cane away from the path so that I can sit on that trunk there, otherwise I cannot calm down.” The tiredness that speaks from these lines goes with the hard one Life of the workers in the sugar cane plantations, and it seems to be expressed in the calm and slightly melancholy character of the music.
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Compay Segundo on the making of Chan Chan:
«Yo no compuse Chan Chan; la soñé. Sueño con la música. A veces me despierto con una melodía en la cabeza, oigo los instrumentos, todo muy clarito. Me asomo al balcón y no veo a nadie, pero la escucho como si estuvieran tocando en la calle. No sé lo que será. Un día me levanté escuchando esas cuatro noticas sensibles, les puse una letra inspirándome en un cuento infantil de cuando yo era niño, Juanica y Chan Chan, y ya ves, ahora se canta en todo el mundo. »
“I didn't compose Chan Chan, I dreamed it. I dream with the music. Sometimes I wake up with a melody in my head, hear the instruments, everything very clear. I stretch out to the balcony and don't see anyone, but I hear it as if it was being played on the street. I do not know what it is. One day, listening to these four soulful notes, I got up and wrote to them, inspired by a children's fairy tale when I was a child - Juanica y Chan Chan - a lyrics, and now you see, now it's being sung all over the world . "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bladimir Zamora Céspedes: Tras las huellas de Chan Chan , accessed on January 12, 2020 (Spanish)
- ↑ PBS: Chan Chan
- ↑ ÉCHAAA !!! , la jiribilla - revista de cultura cubana, accessed January 12, 2019
- ↑ Chan Chan. In: Diario de Noticias - Edición Digital. September 13, 2003, archived from the original on June 21, 2009 ; Retrieved December 2, 2012 (Spanish).