Revolutionary song

It’s midnight and I just came back home. I went out for a drink with José Lorenzo, he is the former director of the SOS Village in Managua and since 2002 he works at the national office of SOS Nicaragua as the coordinator for all issues regarding education and care of children in all the Nicaraguan villages. We work in the same office.

Tonight we first went to the “Maria Bonita”, a restaurant which resembles a Mexican Patio. We sat outside and enjoyed the incredible weather in Managua; at the moment it reminds me of a September night in Chihuahua, but it also feels like a May afternoon in Barcelona or Vienna, or a warm evening in August in Innsbruck. To be more precise: 24°C, which is for me, the best weather that one can experience after sunset.
After drinking a Michelada and having loads of nachos with pico de gallo (fresh tomatoes, onions and jalapeños with lime juice and coriander), we headed up to “El Güegüense” (Yes, we have umlauts in Spanish!).
At the Güegüene (pronounced wue wuense) we had two grilled sweet corn and banana chips topped with beans and fried cheese. By the way, the corn tasted like lamb, surely because it was grilled along with lamb-chops. This situation led me to the following question: Is grilled corn still vegan if it tastes like lamb? If yes, this is good news for veggies or vegans who miss meat. For those of you who have finally realised that tofu sucks, have lamb-flavoured corn!

While we ate, there was band playing Nicaraguan folk music, by hearing to it, I realised how strong the link is between Nicaraguan songwriter music from the 70’s and Mexican popular songs from the 1920’s. Nicaragua has experienced one of the longest and bloodiest dictatorships in Latin-America, and after the dictator fled to Miami in 1979, Mr. Ronald Reagan financed a civil war which lasted until the end of the 80’s.
Listening to the music tonight recalled me of an important part of Mexican Folk-music. Nicaraguans sing with their hearts to their nation, revolution and the rifles they carried on in the 70’s. We Mexicans sing also revolution-songs, but they differentiate from the Nicaraguan ones because they are not always focused on the battlefield.

In Nicaragua and Mexico songs written during war times are very popular and people sing them when happy, drunk of sad. However, I have the feeling that Nicaraguans are more loyal and maintain their political ideology in the songs; on the other hand, we Mexicans love to sing revolutionary songs, but some of these songs are about a lost love (La Adelita) or about a women smoking a joint to stay strong when loading rifles (La Cucaracha).

If you want to experience a genuine Mexican revolutionary song hear “El son de la negra”, this song embraces the revolutionary ideals perfectly. It includes a passive start which slowly accelerates and evolves into the search of a better future for all mankind. “El son de la negra” is a song entirely based on a locomotive - industrialisation, hope, wealth. Everything from its rhythm to its structure and melody clearly sounds like a train. Got curious? Search it in youtube!