Chamamé a Cuba [English translation]

One day in January I took my canoe for a stroll

They told me to take care of yourself, and that with the storm I would be lost

But I'm a brave correntino1 on my payment and a delta connoisseur

I set off with the first sunset lights

When it was as dark as a wolf's mouth, I was going to go back

But the deceptive river pushed me to the seashore

And discouraged, seeing no more coast to distract

My stomach I began to count the stars and think

I was thinking about how little a man is worth when he's so alone

But I had an idea that at that moment made me react

I'll do a feat like Vito Dumas2 I'll be Marco Polo

And when I return to my payment all the guairas will want to kiss me

And after a few days of sailing

I was happy because I already believed Christopher Columbus

And I was sad when I saw another spot on the horizon

That wasn't a whale, but was land, damn it, how joyful

When I stepped to the ground and sniffed, if it was Corrientes3

And when I saw a peasant with a rifle, I asked him

If rancho La Cambicha4 was far away, he replied kindly:

"You are in Cuba, a socialist country, the land of Fidel"

I wanted to go back because of what I read in La Prensa5

But seeing Cubans work happy for the future

Today the land is everyone's, there are no illiterates and even a child thinks

That whoever comes to Cuba with a war can't leave

Because those rifles that yesterday aimed at the oppressed people

Are the ones that today defend in the hands of the people their revolution

Are the ones who include cops with two last names in my payment

Are the ones that we will have Moncho Raela, Jesusa and Ramón

And with my canoe and my chamamé6

I left Raúl Roa7 and had my eye on my payment again

And to the correntines I must be faithful to them, and here I end up

May the yankees die, long live Fidel!

1. a resident of Corrientes province in northeastern Argentina.2. an argentine single-handed sailor, traveler, he set out on a single-handed circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean.3. one of the provinces in the north-east of Argentina.4. El Rancho'e La Cambicha is a well-known song of Argentine folklore, written by Mario Millán Medina, it was the first theme of the musical genre rasguido doble that had wide dissemination. The rancho de la Cambicha was located on the outskirts of the village in Goya within the province of Corrientes.5. a daily newspaper in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, founded in 1869 by José Camilo Paz (a wealthy Argentine businessman and politician one of the representatives of the generation of the governing elite in Argentina from 1880 to 1916) and which was considered one of the ten most important newspapers in the world.6. a genre of folk music from Northeastern Argentina and Argentine Mesopotamia7. was a Cuban intellectual, politician and diplomat.

• Artist:Soledad Bravo
• Album:Cantos revolucionarios de America Latina