Flamenco singers offer their personal flavor to the letras (song verses) that they sing,
in the quality of their voice,
their phrasing,
their mannerisms and facial expressions,
and with the words they choose to sing.
I am referring to the letras themselves and the wording of said letras.
One singer may word what is essentially the same verse differently from another singer.
Let's look at how two cantaores, Miguel Lavi and El Pele, interpret today's letra in two distinct ways.
(I'm pretty positive you'll love both renditions.)
The letra:
La llamo de madrugada
y el corazóncito mio me dice
por Dios no la llames más
I call her in the middle of the night
and my heart says,
for God’s sake, don’t call her anymore
Listen to Miguel Lavi sing it below por bulerías at about 1:15:
As you know by now, it’s common for a flamenco singer to repeat lines.
In bulerías it’s typical for a singer to repeat first line as well as the last two lines. (Although they can do any number of things.)
In the version above, that’s what Miguel Lavi does.
He varies the words slightly with each repetition, which is also common.
When he repeats the second part, he adds,
Mira que me voy a poner malito, por Dios no la llames más,
This is messing me up, or I’m going to get sick if I keep calling her.
Flamenco singers make the letras their own.
They may switch up the words in repeated phrases within a given letra as per the example above,
And individual singers will also commonly word traditional verses in their own way.
Sometimes this can even change the meaning.
In the video below you can see and hear El Pele’s interpretation about one minute in.
In this version, she calls him, rather than him calling her,
Me llama de madrugada.
Making his heart stop,
y el corazón mío me lo paras
And he begs her to stop,
Por Dios, no me llames más,
My God, stop calling me!
He sings it in soleá por bulerías:
Wow.
(I discovered the above video of El Pele here.)
I don’t know who called whom in the original letra. These details are hard to determine considering the oral tradition of flamenco. But if you know, please share in the comments below!
By the way, this is the first letra Miguel Lavi sings in the track above.
And here is another great example of the one letra expressed in a variety of ways.
Flamenco vocabulary from this post:
Cantaores - flamenco singers
Letra - song verse
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Cover photo of the night sky filled with stars by Zongnan Bao on Unsplash