Musical Classics: Tu Cárcel

Few things tell us more about ourselves than the type of music we choose to listen to.  No sé porque, but I’ve always believed that.  There’s something about the intimacy between a good song, it’s lyrics and how they speak to us that is really special.  A good song – así una bien llegadora al corazón – can transcend time and take us back to a specific moment in our lives.  For me, it’s always been the rancheras and the  canciones bien mexicanas (you know like Tu Cárcel) that can send me into a frenzy of emotions from happy, hopeful, melancholic, to even bien chillón.  

I don’t know what it is about this particular song, but it always makes me choke up así con un ñudote bien grandote en la garganta.  It’s one of the few songs I can’t ever sing along to without shedding at least a couple of tears.  Se me vienen a la mente tantos recuerdos that describing them in any succinct form is almost impossible.  All I can say is that it speaks to me at the very core of how I grew up, how I was raised, and what I believe.  Por eso, regardless of how much I like current music or not, when I want to think or process anything complicated in my life chances are you’ll find me listening to this song over and over again… along with a few others.

My favorite lyrics from the song are these:

Te vas amor, si así lo quieres que le voy hacer

Tu vanidad no te deja entender
que en la pobreza se sabe querer

Quiero llorar y me destroza que pienses así
y más que ahora me quede sin ti
me duele lo que tu vas a sufrir

Pero recuerda nadie es perfecto y tu lo veras
más de mil cosas mejores tendras
pero cariño sincero jamás
Vete olvidando de esto que hoy dejas y que cambiaras
por la aventura que tu ya veras
será tu cárcel y nunca saldras