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Corridista as Reporter

Corrido composer Paulino Vargas insisted a good corridista must also be a reporter. That assertion is shared in Wald’s book, in a chapter devoted to Vargas. Vargas was part of a norteño duo in the 1950s. He sang and played the accordion, performing old corridos long before he composed any of his own. Wald discovered one of Vargas’s early recordings in the office of American folklorist Alan Lomax and later tracked Vargas down in Mexico for an interview. Among the Vargas songs that Wald mentions is “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” a ballad with a “gritty, down-to-earth feel that recalled the old border outlaw corridos.” The song was recorded by Pepe Cabrera and later by Los Tigres, and also was made into a film. Here’s the opening verse, with Ward’s translation:

Dicen que venian del sur en un carro colorado,
Traian cien kilos de coca, iban con rumbo a Chicago,
Asi lo dijo soplon que los habia denunciado

It is said they came from the south in a red car,
They carried one hundred kilos of cocaine, they were headed
for Chicago,
That’s what the squealer said who had informed on them

The ballad recounts a real event. I can imagine Springsteen singing it – his flat, reportorial voice straddling something between music and speech. The lyrics of Springsteen’s border songs share an emotional core with the lyrics of “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” but Springsteen’s songs don’t sound like the music recorded by Los Tigres. Tempo and instrumentation account for significant differences in what is felt in this music. I don’t hear the emotional core of “La Banda del Carro Rojo” when I listen to Los Tigres. I don’t feel it or intuit it from the music alone. I can hear an emotional core in Springsteen’s work. Remove Springsteen’s lyrics – lyrics that carry the weight of his border songs – and I still discern the emotion. Springsteen’s sound tells us what to feel – makes us feel what we feel. But if I erase the words from this Los Tigres recording of “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” I lose what’s grim. Is Springsteen, in this way, a more effective corridista? Or is Los Tigres doing something artful and effective by mismatching music and lyrics? The Los Tigres recording gives the ear something cheerful while sharing a disturbing story – much as Alex does in A Clockwork Orange when he sings “Singin’ in the Rain” during the rape scene. That something joyful is paired with such violence is bizarre and destabilizing. (Watch the scene on YouTube here.)

How much do cultural expectations associated with different tempos affect a listener’s experience of any music? I appreciate Vargas’s lyrics very much, but I wouldn’t have listened to the Los Tigres recording of “La Banda del Carro Rojo” to help me sleep in those weeks following my grandma’s death.

In Wald’s interview, Vargas said, “Why tell lies?” Later, Vargas explained, “For me, what works best is what’s closest to the truth – though of course you have to add a bit of morbo.” That blend of fact and fiction (and morbo) is present in the border songs on The Ghost of Tom Joad. So is the “gritty, down-to-earth feel” that characterized old corridos. “Sinaloa Cowboys” and “Balboa Park” share stories of undocumented Mexicans who die in California. Just as Steinbeck’s Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath was informed by real people in real situations (Okies and tenant farmers), Springsteen’s border songs are influenced by real events. Steinbeck formed the framework for his novel from a series of articles that ran in the San Francisco News in 1936. Springsteen’s sources are cited in the liner notes for the album. Sebastian Rotella’s article “Children of the Border,” which appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 1993, informs “Balboa Park.” Another article in the Los Angeles Times, “California’s Illicit Farm Belt Export,” by Mark Arax and Tom Gordon, informs “Sinoloa Cowboys.”

As most traditional corridos do, Springsteen’s border songs establish narrative in the first lines. The importance of these songs is felt in the lyrics, which in many ways carry more weight than the music. Consider these first (and second) lines in Springsteen’s four border songs on The Ghost of Tom Joad:

From “Sinaloa Cowboys”:
Miguel came from a small town in northern Mexico
He came north with his brother Louis to California

From “Balboa Park”:
He lay his blanket underneath the freeway

From “The Line”:
I got my discharge from Fort Irwin
Took a place on the San Diego county line

From “Across the Border”:
Tonight my bag is packed

We hear story and history immediately in these songs, and, in at least one of them, we hear the ghost of another Springsteen song. I can’t listen to “The Line” without thinking, also, of Joe Roberts in “Highway Patrolman.” Like Joe, the speaker in “The Line” is tugged between duty and love – professional commitment and personal interest.

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