Wednesday, July 13, 2005:
Long-term readers should know that I have a genuine fondness for cheesy music. I hope it's only occasional, but ... who knows. Um. I like today's track very much, in spite of every atom of my superego whispering "this is horribly cheesy." Here's a short story about the music: I first heard it in 1996, sold most of my CDs in early 2000 when I was low on cash, and still thought of the song off and on for five years after. There was something about the cartoonish feel to it that stuck with me: the pizzicato harps on the left, then the muted trumpets on the right, the violin on the left, the woodwind on the right, all to sort of a languid guitar, and then the men's choir comes in, sounding like a late night in a centuries-old Catholic church, candles casting flickering shadows on stone walls. It was all very vivid and it nagged at me. Finally last month I tracked down the song and bought the album.
The song's lyrics take an unabashedly romantic approach, describing the fishermen and their nets in the moon-lit night: waves and shadows forcing the man to sing.
You can read more about Chapala here and here, but it's not required to dig the music. What's required for that is probably just to send your superego off to the store to pick up some health food. Then you turn off the lights, turn up the volume, lay back awhile, and let your mind drift.
[Amazon.com]
lunas de noche en Chapala
Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán -- ChapalaLong-term readers should know that I have a genuine fondness for cheesy music. I hope it's only occasional, but ... who knows. Um. I like today's track very much, in spite of every atom of my superego whispering "this is horribly cheesy." Here's a short story about the music: I first heard it in 1996, sold most of my CDs in early 2000 when I was low on cash, and still thought of the song off and on for five years after. There was something about the cartoonish feel to it that stuck with me: the pizzicato harps on the left, then the muted trumpets on the right, the violin on the left, the woodwind on the right, all to sort of a languid guitar, and then the men's choir comes in, sounding like a late night in a centuries-old Catholic church, candles casting flickering shadows on stone walls. It was all very vivid and it nagged at me. Finally last month I tracked down the song and bought the album.
The song's lyrics take an unabashedly romantic approach, describing the fishermen and their nets in the moon-lit night: waves and shadows forcing the man to sing.
You can read more about Chapala here and here, but it's not required to dig the music. What's required for that is probably just to send your superego off to the store to pick up some health food. Then you turn off the lights, turn up the volume, lay back awhile, and let your mind drift.
[Amazon.com]
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