#27: Santiago, 1964 (She Loves You Sí, Sí, Sí) and a song by Gustavo Cerati

(personal narrative, cover song)

Valparaiso, Chile (where I landed)

We spoke through a wrought iron fence. Que dicen? Que dicen they kept asking. Even with the extra bit of height gained by standing on the fence’s lower rail, and leaning away from the uprights as far as my arms would allow, I still had to tilt my head to make eye contact with my neighbors, who were very keen on picking a four-year-old’s english-speaking brain about the meaning of the song on the transistor radio.

It was grey plastic, only slightly larger than a deck of cards, and seemed to belong to the oldest girl, who was kneeling now on her side of the fence, at eye-level with me. The song had ended, but we all knew it wouldn’t be long before it came on it again. At that point in 1964, and for a long time after, She Loves You was the only thing in the world. In the meantime she asked again: que significa?

It wasn’t that I couldn’t translate. I understood the English, and by that time I had learned enough Spanish to defend myself on the playground and help my mother through awkward transactions at the grocery store. I am told I was fully bilingual. I say “I am told” because upon returning to the US a year later I proceeded to lose all my Spanish. Every conjugation and preposition, my (almost) native ear and Chilean pronunciation, whatever vocabulary a four-year-old had picked up: gone. Moving to Argentina thirty-five years later, I expected some kind of magical reactivation to take place. It did not. I had to learn everything from zero. Nothing remained of what I had learned in Santiago.

Hanging onto the wrought iron fence, I tried to understand. I knew that que dicen means “what are they saying”. The problem wasn’t translation. I got the basic gist of the song (and what a gist it is!). Although I couldn’t think in these terms at the time what I was failing to grasp was how such a wonder of pop catharsis could be indecipherable to anyone.

And of course it wasn’t. Those kids got it, just as I had, without needing to understand the words. The song was one thing, self-evident. But I imagine that for any non-English-speakers the mysterious syllables must’ve added another dimension to the mania, one I could not relate to. My Chilean friends had heard She Loves You and loved it instantly. Not knowing English had no effect on their enjoyment. Likewise, I doubt my appreciation for the song was much enhanced by my interpretation of “She Loves You” as referring to my mother’s affection for me.

My audience was growing impatient. I needed to tell them what it meant. Here I came up against another problem. In addition to the meaning of those syllables, there was the question of quantity. There’s more than one way to correctly answer the question, Que significa She Loves You? Not all of them have the right amount of syllables. But this was translation, not adaptation. So I went with ella te ama.

They were obviously disappointed. It had to mean more than that. Also, I could see them doing the math, counting on fingers, mumble-singing to themselves. What I had given them was not only pedestrian, it was unsingable, two syllables too many for the hook. The only way it could be done was to place an inelegant accent on the second syllable of ella, move ama over to where yeah, yeah, yeah used to be, and sing two notes over the first vowel in ama. Aside from the melisma, none of this was even remotely acceptable. It didn’t take long for someone to work out a solution: nix the redundant subject. Off they went, down the street, into the future singing te ama—sí, sí, sí, leaving me on my side of the fence. A year later I was back in New York. I’ve often wondered what became of those children.

---

Speaking of songs in languages not native (to me), this week I got it into my head that I wanted to learn and record one of my favorites, “Crimen” by the late Gustavo Cerati. It should not have been as difficult as it was. Maybe if I’d maintained my Spanish all those years the pronunciation wouldn’t have been so difficult. And for some reason I decided to do the basic instrument track on a mandola of all things.

Cerati was a master composer, arranger, and band leader. He was a very, very good guitarist and singer. I also have it on good authority that he was a lovely fellow. Nevertheless, trying to work out Crimen’s chord progression on a mandola had me hurling some light charges in his eternal direction. It takes some unexpected turns. But learning and recording Crimen is something I’ve been wanting to do. I’m a great admirer of Cerati’s work, and hopefully this song (if not this rough version) brings me a little closer to making a record of music by Argentine artists.