…si te quedan agallas: Ricardo Arjona… I have been listening to his music for ten odd years, own six of his albums, saw him live once, and even wrote an essay about him in one of my postgraduate courses. Yet, I have to admit that I have a unique love-hate relationship with his music. At times I have been taken aback at how unbelievably abysmal some of his songs are: Recycled melodies and rhymes that were already cheesy the first time he used them (no more luz/blues, please!) and some extremely awkward arrangements where the music seems composed around the most pedestrian poetry.
But I am not here to bash him. Because, on the other hand, he keeps surprising me with things all kinds of amazing; amazing poetry, amazing melodies and themes, texts that seem easily accessible and only when you look closer you discover there is a different layer of meaning… in short, music that touches something inside and which as a musician you can learn an immense lot from.
Santo Pecado is in my opinion Ricardo Arjona’s best album. One reason is that there is no really weak song on it, no song that seems like a rehash of earlier ideas. To the contrary there are some superb tracks, including but not limited to No sirve de nada, La nena, Mujer de lujo and the present track. But maybe most important are the arrangements; as I understand it Ricardo Arjona writes his song on the guitar, or maybe sometimes the piano, so what he ends up with are his lyrics and the sung melody, plus a harmonic skeleton and maybe sometimes a riff. I don’t know in how far it is him who decided that Mujer de lujo was going to be a tango, for example. It doesn’t really matter either. My point is that on this album it fits together perfectly; the genre of a song with its theme, in other words, the musical realization of a song’s content. So many of the songs on this album are really good tracks that could stand alone even with much weaker lyrics. A problem on some of the albums is one of musical economy: While Arjona has of course all the resources he could wish for, to me it seems ridiculous to have a whole string section on a song when all they do is add a cheesy flourish here and there. Such a sumptuous ensemble is only justified when it adds something fundamental to the song in terms of mood or harmony; otherwise it constitutes a poor aesthetical/artistic choice, like a dish with little nutrients and way too much MSG. Santo Pecado features great musical economy.
The present song is representative of the album’s balanced sound: I count the constituents of a classic rock band (acoustic guitar, bass, drums) plus a string section consisting of around one violin, viola and violoncello each, some backing vocals and an occasional synthesizer chord. The song features a classic structure of two verses, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus and a musically different bridge leading to a short acoustic outro that is usually omitted in live performances. Yet, throughout the repeated parts – the verses, pre-chorus and chorus – there are some subtle changes in the musical texture, creating contrasts and keeping the piece musically interesting. The most obvious example is beginning of the second verse (“Como duele gastar…”) in which only the string section accompanies, but also the second pre-chorus (“El ministerio del tiempo…”) during which the string section rests. Two more things related to the musical realization deserve mention: First, before I transcribed this song I had never realized that the characteristic guitar chord arpeggio that opens the song is actually maintained in some form throughout the whole song, making it a plausible musical representation of the minutes that keep ticking away; except, that is, during the beginning of the second verse which creates a sense of pausing for a moment that coincides with the meaning of the lyrics (“How painful it is to spend the moment in which you are no longer there, what a drain it is to struggle with the things that don’t come back…”). The second thing is Vinnie Colaiuta’s superb drumming that deserves a mention of its own – as on the whole rest of the album his excellent choices of grooves, accents and his awesome fills add something substantial to the songs as a whole; just listen to the part “Minutos pasajeros de un tren…” and you will know what I mean.
My piano arrangement is rather self-evident in almost every possible sense, so I will limit myself to just a few comments – it seemed quite difficult to me at first, especially the big leaps in the right hand during the chorus, as well as a few other things, but with some practise it was quite manageable. In the verses I have tried to incorporate some of the drum accents in the left hand, as well as the most noticeable drums fills before the beginning of the second verse and the one mentioned above – it may seem a bit silly, but I liked it that way. During the pre-choruses (“La casa no es otra cosa.../El ministerio del tiempo...”) the bassline in my arrangement runs an octave higher than in the original – at first I just practiced it wrong, but when I noticed my mistake, I realized that it sounded better, stripping away some density to create a greater contrast with the chorus, so I continued to play it like that. I am especially proud of the arrangement of the bridge (“Minutos como lluvia de sal…”) – at first it seemed impossible to play, but even though it may not have turned out 100% smooth in my recording, it was great fun to play, and seems like one of my more successful arrangements to me. This brings me to the next and last point – the lyrics.
I had never really paid particular attention to this song’s lyrics, but as I listened to it again and again while I transcribed, I must say I was moved. The ambivalence of time… who has not wanted the time to pass slower at times and faster at others? Yet, no matter what you do, how you spend your time, the minutes keep ticking away… mercilessly. Once again, if you make an effort to look beyond the sometimes slightly silly expressions you will find that the song is telling a rather moving story that almost anyone can relate at some level. Lyrics-wise, again, I want to turn the attention to specific parts: The part “… si te quedan agallas” (“It’s already 7:16/ and the corpse of the minute that just passed/ tells me your strategy has ruined you/ so there is no choice, but to live alone/… if you have agallas left”). I remember asking my Paraguayan host brother Raúl what “agallas” meant and after short consideration he answered that it meant the same as “ganas” (something like “desire/wish/feeling like doing something”). The Real Academia on the other hand defines it as “Arrestos, valentía, audacia.” (“determination, courage, audacity”) which is close enough to what Raúl suggested, and which I had already intuited. Yet, my point is that I have always loved the illogicality of the phrase: If you have no choice, then why do you need determination? Is it the option to live alone that requires determination? But since there is no other option, why? Or does the option to live alone require courage, so as not to kill yourself? I am not really looking for an answer though – in a way the text is perfectly logical, through its illogicality: “You have no choice but to live alone, and good luck with it” is the slightly harsh meaning I get out of it.
Finally the last part of the song’s lyrics – the bridge: “Minutes that make fun of me/minutes like the fury of the sea/minutes, passengers on a train that is not going anywhere/minutes like a rain of salt/minutes like fire on the skin/minutes, strangers that come and go without letting you know/minutes that hurt when spent without you/minutes that don’t pay rent/minutes which upon dying form the battalion of yesterday/minutes that steal the light away/minutes that corrode my faith/minutes that inhabit the time for as long as they may last/minutes that enjoy dying/minutes that have no place/minutes that crash into me… they are God’s own kamikazes.” Just in case you were wondering why I like Arjona’s music so much.
