Our piano-bar-playing friend Greg Schlotthauer is fluent in Spanish, and loves Latin American pop music. He turned us on to Soda Stereo/Gustavo Cerati and Los Tres; in return we turned him on to Cafe Tacuba and Babasonicos. He's playing tonight at the Duplex and he has a bunch of Soda Stereo on his song list, so I've been listening to some with an ear toward making a specific request, and I settled on "De Música Ligera" from 1990's superb Canción Animal. It turns out to be possibly their best-known song, and is the song they chose to end their 1997 farewell concert.
"De Música Ligera" on YouTube.
Pretty excellent power pop, eh? The lyrics aren't hard to find online, but damned if I can find an English translation. AltaVista tries valiantly:
She slept, to the heat of the masses, and I woke up, wanting to dream it. Some time back I thought about writing to him that I never drew for the traps of the love. Of that love of slight music nothing frees nothing to us but it is. I will not send ashes to him of roses nor I think to avoid secret rubbing. Of that love of slight music nothing frees nothing to us but it is. . . . Of that love of slight music nothing frees nothing to us but it is left nothing but nothing but is left nothing but it is left nothing but it is left nothing but it is
That first sentence is great and I hope it's accurate. "Avoid secret rubbing," on the other hand, sounds like the small type that might have resulted if Dr Bronner had branched out into hand creams.
Anyway, I'd never noticed till today that "De Música Ligera" bears some resemblance to "Smells Like Teen Spirit". But more than that, I swear it sounds like some classic power pop song that I can't put my finger on. It's going to make me crazy till I figure it out.
mckehev
hi! i found this posting looking for an English translation of lyrics De Musica Ligera. since this was the only page on the topic that i found i made a translation myself, you can find it here http://mckehev.livejournal.com/4736.html in case you'd like to take a look.
Thank you very much! Heading over to your journal now.
Daver
Hey, Im an American who spent some time in Buenos Aires and developed a love for Soda Stereo.
De Musica Ligera reminds me of an Offspring song off their self titled album i used to listen to when i was 12. Check it out, its just like offspring, just it came first.
In fact I often think that their songs remind me of American pop songs, but, perhaps counter intuitively, i usually find that the soda stereo song was recorded before the similar american one.