Week 61: Music from a Catholic School Education 5
Part 5: Las Navidades en Puerto Rico
Christmas is the time when I most miss being in Puerto Rico. Earlier and earlier in the year I start missing it more, as radio stations in North Carolina begin to play Christmas music earlier and earlier in the year. This year, one local station in our area started playing non-stop Christmas music before Thanksgiving. That’s 24 hours of non-stop Christmas music, seven days a week, for over a month. By the time December first comes around it’s practically impossible to avoid hearing, several times a day, such inane classics as White Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Jingle Bell Rock or, lord help me, The Chipmunk Song. The more I hear this incessant pap, the more I miss Christmas in Puerto Rico, and the more I miss the music we would make every Christmas in parranda after parranda between December first and the culmination of Christmas during the Fiestas de San Sebastian sometime around the 20th of January, which were basically a several day street parranda. I haven’t spent Christmas in Puerto Rico in many years and I understand things have changed since the last Christmas I spent there, but I miss it, at least I miss the music and parrandas I remember, with my rose-colored memory, those Christmases of many years ago.
[insert sound and visual effect here – maybe the standard spiraling of the visual field, with an increasing echo and reverb on my voice… voice…… voice……… voice…………voice………………]
And it’s Christmas in Puerto Rico circa 1982.
And the music coming out of speakers everywhere is still annoying. The two-step ultra fast merengue beat has taken over the airwaves and it’s being blasted at competitive decibels out of practically every store and radio station in town. But as my buddies and I walk down Loiza Street on the way to the record store, we are oblivious to the noise, we are too young to really care and we have plans. I’m buying a cowbell.
At the young age of sixteen, I have been through enough Christmases to realize that having an instrument that I can carry wherever I go, is almost a requirement during Navidades. Because even though you can have a parranda without any instruments, that would be like eating red beans and rice without sofrito, which is the spice mixture that gives them that particular Puerto Rican flavor. So we’re going to the record store because record stores, and during Christmas almost all stores, sell small percussion instruments you can carry around easily – claves, güiros, maracas, cowbells, pleneras, tambourines, bongos, there’s hundreds of them, a soda can and a stick work well too. I need an easy to carry instrument I can have with me at all times because one never knows when a parranda will break out. It’s after December first so, after midnight, it could be at any moment.
Hanging out late at night at a friend’s house, and suddenly, there’s a parranda at the door. Walking down the street in Old San Juan, and suddenly, there’s a parranda on the corner. Sitting at the bar Los Hijos de Borinquen with my buddy, and suddenly, hey, there’s no parranda, let’s start one. And like some kind of western gunslinger, I pull out my cowbell and my buddy readies his plenera, which is basically a tambourine without the little cymbals, so you play it like a hand drum. Right there we start one of the many traditional parranda choruses, most of which seem to be about drinking or about Jesus. There are some verses that everyone knows, but mainly the songs are designed for simple verse improvisations. Within minutes a couple of other people from the bar have joined our parranda and we warm up with a few easy songs. Abreme la puerta, abreme la puerta que estoy en la calle, y dira la gente que esto es un desaire. Open the door, open the door ‘cause I’m on the street and people will say that you’re snubbing us.
That’s always a good starting song, and with that, we do a shot of coquito, which is sort of like eggnog, figure out which house we’re going to hit first, and head out. Now it’s just after midnight, so we have to make sure to go to a house where we know they are already asleep. We park the car a block away and sneak up quietly to the front door, there’s only a few of us and we’re still mostly sober, so it’s not hard to do this. This will become increasingly difficult to do later on in the night when the group has grown to 20 or 30 mostly very drunk people. For now, we all quiet down, and on one, two, three, we scream, parranda!! as loud as we can and immediately break into a song. Traigo esta trulla para que te levantes, esta trulla esta caliente, esta trulla esta que arde. We bring this parranda to wake you up, this parranda is hot, this parranda is boiling hot (even if at this point the hotness of the parranda might be more of a wish than a fact, but it’s still early). And so it begins. It might take two or three songs, maybe four, but the occupants always wake up, put on some clothing and let us in. We stumble into the house as we continue to sing. Si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber. If you don’t give me something to drink I will cry, if you don’t give me something to drink I will cry, if you don’t give me something to drink I will cry if you don’t give me something to drink.
Our bleary-eyed friends search for rum or vodka or whatever they may have, and serve drinks and snacks. It’s a very special feeling being woken up from a deep sleep to the sound of a parranda. One cannot wake up grumpy to a parranda, one expects it at least a few times during the holidays, but one never knows when it's gonna happen, so when it does it's impossible to not get carried away by the festive singing of plenas, bombas, aguinaldos and the various other traditional genres that are represented in the parranda repertoire.
We sing a few more songs and this is where the parranda selections might veer more towards prettier songs with a religious theme. Padre San Antonio mi devoto eres, llevame a la gloria mañana a las nueve, mañana a las nueve que no hay quien lo dude, que por el espacio caminan las nubes. Father Saint Anthony you are my devotion, take me to glory tomorrow at nine, tomorrow at nine there is no doubt, that the clouds walk through space. I think it’s a hangover song. Meanwhile the people of the house get dressed and ready to continue along with us, they are excited cause they caught the parranda early on in the night. So now, with a few more people, a few more instruments, and a few more drinks, we head towards the next house.
And so we go from house to house, at some point maybe a couple of people with horns join us and the music really starts to cook. By the fourth of fifth house the parranda has grown into a hefty group and our singing is getting better and drunker and the leading improvisers of the verses begin to stand out. La Pascua debiera ser, cada vez que hubiera luna y tener una laguna de aguardiente pa’ beber. Christmas should be every day there is a moon, and to have a lake of aguardiente (sugar cane liquor) to drink.
On rare occasions people will not answer the door, and there are a whole set of songs for those who don’t answer. I mean really, before a parranda gives up on a house, the whole neighborhood will have been woken up by the increasingly loud music. And that is just not nice.
During the last parrandas I was part of in Puerto Rico, we started running into gated communities where we had to jump fences to get to the object house. I doubt anyone is jumping fences these days. Drinking and age were also not monitored by the government, and neither was drinking and driving. I’m sure we were a danger to ourselves and others, and I have memories of a number of incidents reported in the local news. There were also different kinds of parrandas, early evening parrandas were little children could participate, more organized parrandas with professional musicans in public places, other parranda traditions from other parts of the world. But to me those will always be variations, as I am sure the parrandas of my youth that I am describing here were variations on the parrandas that came before us. But since this is my rose-colored memory, I won’t go into all that. We all know things change, and we all know the laws now, and we all know we have to be careful when drinking. We were careful then, but it was different, for better or worse, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico.
So by four or five in the morning getting quietly to a house is a difficult task. Someone driving home at this hour sees our caravan of cars and knows there is only one reason for it, he has a conga in his trunk so he joins the crew. By now on a good night, the music is smoking, and the songs have instrumental sections, all kinds of breaks, turnarounds, crazy improvisations and anything else someone might think to try, such as call and response sections such as this one:
Comadrita la rana, Sister the frog, says one group
Señor, señor, Sir, sir, answers the other.
¿Llegó su marido? Is your husband home? Asks the first group
Si señor, Yes sir, the second group answers.
¿Y que le trajo? And what did he bring?
Un ropón, a robe.
¿De qué color? What color?
Verde limón, Lime green.
Vamos a misa, Let’s go to church.
No tengo camisa, I don’t have a shirt.
Vamos al sermón, Let’s go to the sermon.
No tengo calzón, I don’t have pants.
La botellita, The little bottle,
No tiene tapita, Has no little cap.
El botellón, The big bottle,
No tiene tapón, Has no big cap.
And then everyone together,
Quítale, quítale, quítale, quíiiiii quítale el tapón, Take off, take off, take offffffff the big cap. Pon, pon, pon, quítale el tapón. Cap, cap, cap, take off the big cap.
Now that can only make sense at five or six in the morning with a huge parranda that’s been at it for most of the night. At this point, we know the end is near and someone calls ahead to what will be the final house to ask if they can handle a large breakfast. I don’t know of anyone ever saying no. And so, as the sun comes up, we sit in someone’s porch and drink some tasty home brewed coffee and eat eggs, bacon, toast, and maybe with some luck, just maybe, there’ll be some asopao, which is a soupy chicken and rice delicacy that is as good as it gets at the end of a parranda or on a rainy day. And the singing continues. Con pandereta, güiro y maracas, la serenata alegre va. Deseo a todos por despedida año de vida y felicidad. With tambourine, güiro and maracas, the serenade happily goes. Wishing everyone as a farewell a year full of life and happiness… happiness…… happiness ……… happiness ………… happiness………….. [and again, the spiraling of the visual field, the increasing echo and reverb on the voice...]
And I am back in North Carolina and it’s the end of 2007, and I know Christmas in Puerto Rico is not the same as it was then. Times have changed and that’s good. And there is still great music, in Puerto Rico and in North Carolina and around the world, played by people who don’t care about selling a single record or getting on the radio or TV, or making a statement, or musical history. It's music made for friends, for a drink, for a surprise, for fun. And really, isn’t that just the best kind of music?
Christmas is the time when I most miss being in Puerto Rico. Earlier and earlier in the year I start missing it more, as radio stations in North Carolina begin to play Christmas music earlier and earlier in the year. This year, one local station in our area started playing non-stop Christmas music before Thanksgiving. That’s 24 hours of non-stop Christmas music, seven days a week, for over a month. By the time December first comes around it’s practically impossible to avoid hearing, several times a day, such inane classics as White Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Jingle Bell Rock or, lord help me, The Chipmunk Song. The more I hear this incessant pap, the more I miss Christmas in Puerto Rico, and the more I miss the music we would make every Christmas in parranda after parranda between December first and the culmination of Christmas during the Fiestas de San Sebastian sometime around the 20th of January, which were basically a several day street parranda. I haven’t spent Christmas in Puerto Rico in many years and I understand things have changed since the last Christmas I spent there, but I miss it, at least I miss the music and parrandas I remember, with my rose-colored memory, those Christmases of many years ago.
[insert sound and visual effect here – maybe the standard spiraling of the visual field, with an increasing echo and reverb on my voice… voice…… voice……… voice…………voice………………]
And it’s Christmas in Puerto Rico circa 1982.
And the music coming out of speakers everywhere is still annoying. The two-step ultra fast merengue beat has taken over the airwaves and it’s being blasted at competitive decibels out of practically every store and radio station in town. But as my buddies and I walk down Loiza Street on the way to the record store, we are oblivious to the noise, we are too young to really care and we have plans. I’m buying a cowbell.
At the young age of sixteen, I have been through enough Christmases to realize that having an instrument that I can carry wherever I go, is almost a requirement during Navidades. Because even though you can have a parranda without any instruments, that would be like eating red beans and rice without sofrito, which is the spice mixture that gives them that particular Puerto Rican flavor. So we’re going to the record store because record stores, and during Christmas almost all stores, sell small percussion instruments you can carry around easily – claves, güiros, maracas, cowbells, pleneras, tambourines, bongos, there’s hundreds of them, a soda can and a stick work well too. I need an easy to carry instrument I can have with me at all times because one never knows when a parranda will break out. It’s after December first so, after midnight, it could be at any moment.
Hanging out late at night at a friend’s house, and suddenly, there’s a parranda at the door. Walking down the street in Old San Juan, and suddenly, there’s a parranda on the corner. Sitting at the bar Los Hijos de Borinquen with my buddy, and suddenly, hey, there’s no parranda, let’s start one. And like some kind of western gunslinger, I pull out my cowbell and my buddy readies his plenera, which is basically a tambourine without the little cymbals, so you play it like a hand drum. Right there we start one of the many traditional parranda choruses, most of which seem to be about drinking or about Jesus. There are some verses that everyone knows, but mainly the songs are designed for simple verse improvisations. Within minutes a couple of other people from the bar have joined our parranda and we warm up with a few easy songs. Abreme la puerta, abreme la puerta que estoy en la calle, y dira la gente que esto es un desaire. Open the door, open the door ‘cause I’m on the street and people will say that you’re snubbing us.
That’s always a good starting song, and with that, we do a shot of coquito, which is sort of like eggnog, figure out which house we’re going to hit first, and head out. Now it’s just after midnight, so we have to make sure to go to a house where we know they are already asleep. We park the car a block away and sneak up quietly to the front door, there’s only a few of us and we’re still mostly sober, so it’s not hard to do this. This will become increasingly difficult to do later on in the night when the group has grown to 20 or 30 mostly very drunk people. For now, we all quiet down, and on one, two, three, we scream, parranda!! as loud as we can and immediately break into a song. Traigo esta trulla para que te levantes, esta trulla esta caliente, esta trulla esta que arde. We bring this parranda to wake you up, this parranda is hot, this parranda is boiling hot (even if at this point the hotness of the parranda might be more of a wish than a fact, but it’s still early). And so it begins. It might take two or three songs, maybe four, but the occupants always wake up, put on some clothing and let us in. We stumble into the house as we continue to sing. Si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber. If you don’t give me something to drink I will cry, if you don’t give me something to drink I will cry, if you don’t give me something to drink I will cry if you don’t give me something to drink.
Our bleary-eyed friends search for rum or vodka or whatever they may have, and serve drinks and snacks. It’s a very special feeling being woken up from a deep sleep to the sound of a parranda. One cannot wake up grumpy to a parranda, one expects it at least a few times during the holidays, but one never knows when it's gonna happen, so when it does it's impossible to not get carried away by the festive singing of plenas, bombas, aguinaldos and the various other traditional genres that are represented in the parranda repertoire.
We sing a few more songs and this is where the parranda selections might veer more towards prettier songs with a religious theme. Padre San Antonio mi devoto eres, llevame a la gloria mañana a las nueve, mañana a las nueve que no hay quien lo dude, que por el espacio caminan las nubes. Father Saint Anthony you are my devotion, take me to glory tomorrow at nine, tomorrow at nine there is no doubt, that the clouds walk through space. I think it’s a hangover song. Meanwhile the people of the house get dressed and ready to continue along with us, they are excited cause they caught the parranda early on in the night. So now, with a few more people, a few more instruments, and a few more drinks, we head towards the next house.
And so we go from house to house, at some point maybe a couple of people with horns join us and the music really starts to cook. By the fourth of fifth house the parranda has grown into a hefty group and our singing is getting better and drunker and the leading improvisers of the verses begin to stand out. La Pascua debiera ser, cada vez que hubiera luna y tener una laguna de aguardiente pa’ beber. Christmas should be every day there is a moon, and to have a lake of aguardiente (sugar cane liquor) to drink.
On rare occasions people will not answer the door, and there are a whole set of songs for those who don’t answer. I mean really, before a parranda gives up on a house, the whole neighborhood will have been woken up by the increasingly loud music. And that is just not nice.
During the last parrandas I was part of in Puerto Rico, we started running into gated communities where we had to jump fences to get to the object house. I doubt anyone is jumping fences these days. Drinking and age were also not monitored by the government, and neither was drinking and driving. I’m sure we were a danger to ourselves and others, and I have memories of a number of incidents reported in the local news. There were also different kinds of parrandas, early evening parrandas were little children could participate, more organized parrandas with professional musicans in public places, other parranda traditions from other parts of the world. But to me those will always be variations, as I am sure the parrandas of my youth that I am describing here were variations on the parrandas that came before us. But since this is my rose-colored memory, I won’t go into all that. We all know things change, and we all know the laws now, and we all know we have to be careful when drinking. We were careful then, but it was different, for better or worse, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico.
So by four or five in the morning getting quietly to a house is a difficult task. Someone driving home at this hour sees our caravan of cars and knows there is only one reason for it, he has a conga in his trunk so he joins the crew. By now on a good night, the music is smoking, and the songs have instrumental sections, all kinds of breaks, turnarounds, crazy improvisations and anything else someone might think to try, such as call and response sections such as this one:
Comadrita la rana, Sister the frog, says one group
Señor, señor, Sir, sir, answers the other.
¿Llegó su marido? Is your husband home? Asks the first group
Si señor, Yes sir, the second group answers.
¿Y que le trajo? And what did he bring?
Un ropón, a robe.
¿De qué color? What color?
Verde limón, Lime green.
Vamos a misa, Let’s go to church.
No tengo camisa, I don’t have a shirt.
Vamos al sermón, Let’s go to the sermon.
No tengo calzón, I don’t have pants.
La botellita, The little bottle,
No tiene tapita, Has no little cap.
El botellón, The big bottle,
No tiene tapón, Has no big cap.
And then everyone together,
Quítale, quítale, quítale, quíiiiii quítale el tapón, Take off, take off, take offffffff the big cap. Pon, pon, pon, quítale el tapón. Cap, cap, cap, take off the big cap.
Now that can only make sense at five or six in the morning with a huge parranda that’s been at it for most of the night. At this point, we know the end is near and someone calls ahead to what will be the final house to ask if they can handle a large breakfast. I don’t know of anyone ever saying no. And so, as the sun comes up, we sit in someone’s porch and drink some tasty home brewed coffee and eat eggs, bacon, toast, and maybe with some luck, just maybe, there’ll be some asopao, which is a soupy chicken and rice delicacy that is as good as it gets at the end of a parranda or on a rainy day. And the singing continues. Con pandereta, güiro y maracas, la serenata alegre va. Deseo a todos por despedida año de vida y felicidad. With tambourine, güiro and maracas, the serenade happily goes. Wishing everyone as a farewell a year full of life and happiness… happiness…… happiness ……… happiness ………… happiness………….. [and again, the spiraling of the visual field, the increasing echo and reverb on the voice...]
And I am back in North Carolina and it’s the end of 2007, and I know Christmas in Puerto Rico is not the same as it was then. Times have changed and that’s good. And there is still great music, in Puerto Rico and in North Carolina and around the world, played by people who don’t care about selling a single record or getting on the radio or TV, or making a statement, or musical history. It's music made for friends, for a drink, for a surprise, for fun. And really, isn’t that just the best kind of music?
Labels: Music from a Catholic Education, Puerto Rico, Thursdays
11 Comments:
That totally amazes me, Carlos. One question though, do you avoid houses where you know the household to be financially incapable of giving you all of their food? I mean, I guess around Christmas time, if you were hungry all you needed was a stick and a can...
So interesting. I wonder how it has changed.
i still think you should get in on a graphic novel with your stories. thanks for sharing.
And I get the fucking Christmas day post when yours is this honest, fitting, and brilliant gem. I have got to find another outlet for my pathetic ramblings... I am doing this forum no justice.
Abso-friggin-lutely Carlos. Well said. And I hope very much to take part in a parranda one day. Even better with the Anacondas!
Btw, a couple of days ago I was staring into the freezer section at my grocery store at a sofrito container trying to remember what the heck it was. Thanks for the info!
Well thank you, Carlos. That reminded me very much of listening to Dylan Thomas read his incredibly charming rose-colored Christmas memoir, "A Child's Christmas in Wales." My family listens to it every year on Christmas Eve, but we missed it this year. Your version filled that gap quite nicely, and I thank you for that.
One year, when I was about 12, we went caroling. It was awful. Everybody was sober, the songs were awful, and nobody really wanted to be there. If only we had been in Puerto Rico.
http://archive.salon.com/audio/fiction/2000/12/22/dylan_thomas/index
EM, I come from a middle class family, and i think most of the houses we would go to were middle class homes. I do remember homes where there wasn't much of anything but they would always have a little something and would always be happy to share. Of course for the last house who would make breakfast, we'd generally stick to people we knew would be ok with it, as far as i know. Also, food stamps in Puerto Rico are easier to find than ocean water thanks to the "generosity" of the US Government. So families have food and are happy to share.
And yes, during the holidays in the daytime it was not uncommon to see some of the poorer children in pairs or trios hitting up houses with songs for food or even better, a bit of cash. Generally they were as welcome as anyone else, though now I imagine people are much more afraid and again there are those pesky gates everywhere... Remember my vacation post about my neighborhood?
Wed, sofrito of course is best when its home made, say by your grandma, but the Goya kind is pretty good, and if you find it, get also the Recaito which is a different set of spices to complement the Sofrito. Used them both with your rice and beans and you'll get an idea about PR flavor.
I've always wanted to do a parranda in the US, but it's hard, americans dont like to be woken up in the middle of the night by drunk loud people, and neighborhoods are not all that accepting of that either. But i think the main problem is that americans immediately confuse it with Carolling which it only vaguely resembles.
SoR, thank you, that is a great link. I think my family will be taking up some of your family traditions, this dylan thomas is great, as were the Just So Stories you recommended a while back. Great stuff all around.
Oh man I saw recaito too. The ingrediants looked about the same as sofrito so I was wondering what the difference really was and now you're saying you are supposed to combine them anyway. Well hell man I'll give it a shot.
I'd do it this week but we're already making black-eyed peas. I wonder if this PR stuff would be good in there.
i would stick to the texas blackeyed pea recipe. best thing to cook with sofrito y recaito is red beans, or even better gandules (pigeon peas)...
sautee some onions and garlic and add the mix, then add the beans, then the rice.... or look up a recipe for arroz con gandules.
happy new year! something is on teh way for the little one...
the last song you mention brought a tear to my eye because it reminded me of the songs my mother sang to orion (the hormigita song) as a baby and the songs i made up on the spot just for him. i'm going to write out the lyrics of one song i madeup for my own benefit, since the lyrics make no sense and my memory of them is fading fast:
mama mama mama mamacita!
la la la la la la lechita.
pon pon pon pon ponme panyal.
da da da da da dame dulce!
mama mama mama mamacita!
roughly translated means
little mama
the little milk
put a diaper on me
give me candy
little mama
how do you say 'pacifier' in PR? we say "chupon".
very nice. Makes me want to visit Puerto Rico. ;)
cute song rosa. in puerto rico we say 'bobo' for pacifier.
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