This week’s 22th Encuentro Internacional de Mariachi y Charreria (22nd Annual International Mariachi and Charreria Festival) is a perfect opportunity to enjoy two musical forms that constitute the core of Mexico’s folkloric music: corridos and canciones (which includes ranchera).
Tales of love, bravery
The spangled mariachi musicians who stalk fiestas, and restaurants throughout Mexico, — along with smaller groups anywhere from two to four players — and the single, guitar-toting musician working cantina tables, all at one time or another can be heard performing these tales of great love and despair, bravery and foolishness and violent death. Some of these musicians may have only a hazy idea of the various forms they play and sing, belting out boleros, sones, valonas, huapangos with lusty fervor, mixing one form with another without realizing it. Yet others, quite often the oldest, frequently the seemingly least well educated, will have a very clear perception of what kind of songs they are performing.
Quite possibly knowledge of precise forms doesn’t actually matter, especially with the oldest songs. They are simply there, lofted out into the spicy night air filled with bursts of fire and songs to God, with marchas and gringo fox-trots, played by the village band perched in the kiosko of the town square, swathed in the moaning and the roar of cantina and cenaduria juke boxes, pierced by the trumpet blast of competing mariachi bands playing in the transient bars set up in the middle of main street. In this aural melee it can be difficult to sort out pure musica folclorica. Yet, if one is patient and remains relatively clear-headed through the ritual rinsings of aguardiente, tequila, pulque and tuba, late in the evening, usually down some nearby street, where the swirl and cacophony thin out a bit, a solitary figure with a guitar can be found, plying his ancient trade, singing songs whose roots are older, even, than the coming of the conquistadores.
Origins
The formal shape of both the cancion and the corrido originated in Spain, though they were long ago transformed by unequivocal Mexican inflections in both lyrics and melody. In Nueva España the Spanish romances — precursors of the corrido — became a fully cultivated Mexican genre during the late 1600s and the early 1700s. Yet, the first truly Mexican corrido — “El Corrido de la Pulga” (“The Corrido of the Flea” by Pepe Quevedo — didn’t get published until 1821, the year of Mexico’s independence from Spain.
But long before that, the long-stanza tales had become the country’s chief news service. This was especially true during the War for Independence (1810) and throughout the tumultuous conflicts of the mid-1800s as Mexico fought to throw out the French occupation forces. Corridistas appeared in the plazas of cities and pueblos throughout the land, telling news of battles just fought, of political and military maneuvering, victories and defeat, of heroes, martyrs and villains.
Indeed, the course of Mexican history from 1808 on, especially the record of Benito Juarez’s War of Reform, the landing of French troops on Mexican soil, the arrival of Emperor Maximilian and his eventual defeat and execution, can be plainly read in the corridos of that time. Next came corridos concerning the dangerous work of building the nation’s first railroads, then those dealing with the daring insurgentes who rebelled against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Quite naturally, corridos flourished as never before during the long and brutal Revolution of 1910. Revolutionary leaders all had personal corridistas. Samuel Lozano, corridista for Pancho Villa, became nationally famous for the great pieces he composed about his patron, “The Centaur of the North,” and the battles villistas fought. Often such singers were used as spies, infiltrating enemy camps to perform for the opposing troops, all the while collecting militarily useful information.
Today, the performance styles of musicians singing corridos and rancheras are so closely related as to be indistinguishable to most listeners.
‘Bed of Stone’
For instance, “La Cama de Piedra” (“The Bed of Stone”), a famous Revolution-period ranchera by Cuco Sanchez, is dominated by the influence of the corrido. In it Sanchez tells of those Revolutionary soldiers who brought their women with them into service:
The bed will be stone, my love,/ The head of the bed will be stone./ The woman I love has to love me/ With a love as true as my own.
I walked into the Mayor’s office./ I said to the Mayor, “Sir,/ If love is a capital crime,/ Give me death for loving her.”
They day they kill me, let them/ Kill me with five shots, five./ To die in your arms where I never/ Slept when I was alive.
For a coffin I want my serape,/ For a cross my two bandoleers./ Spell out my farewell with a thousand/ Bullets and no tears.
Home-grown corridos
For those of us who live in Jalisco, many of Mexico’s best-known corridos are local songs. For instance, “Hipolito and Rosita”:
Prison of Guadalajara,/ Prison with seven walls,/ Where the men are locked up/ Because of ungrateful women.
“The Suicide of Julian Ramirez” is popular in rural areas around Lake Chapala in good part simply because it’s about a local event.
Gentlemen I will sing/ Of what happened in Zacoalco/ Señor Julian Ramirez/ Died from taking poison/ He loved all the women/ On the ranches and in the towns/ He liked to have a good time/ And to frequent the cantinas.
The story of Julian Ramirez’s suicide is a long 21 stanzas and warns of the dangers posed by mujercitas, (little women) — although the author obviously didn’t have Luisa May Alcott’s ladies in mind.
Cristero Rebellion
Jalisco has a wealth of history well suited for the tales corridos can tell. Mexico’s 1923-1929 Cristero Rebellion against the anti-Catholic administration of President Plutarco Elias Calles was headquartered in the Los Altos region of this state. A vast repertoire of corridos is still sung about that war. Many of these concern the major Cristero organization in Los Altos, “La U,” commemorated in “El Corrido de la Union.” One of the most popular is “El Corrido de Victoriano Ramirez, ‘El Catorce’.” A daredevil rebel who was a paragon of alteño machismo and a leading hero of the Cristeros, El Catorce was eventually executed by his own commander for uncontrollable insubordination.
All the mystery, all the high-spirited bravery and heart-wrenching contradictions of Mexico can be found in the rich lore of the corridos. They attract and fascinate us because they are made of raw history and they are performed in the center of Mexican cultural expression: The noise and seethe, the odors and joy — and despair — of the fiesta.