Cancion Mixteca - beauty in Mexican music

For the past week, a song has been invading my thoughts, as sometimes happens. It's Cancion Mixteca, written about eighty years ago in Mexico City by José López Alavéz, a homesick native of Oaxaca State (a place I have visited, although I didn't know the connection at the time).

Que lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido!
inmensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento;
y al ver me tan solo y triste qual hoja al viento,
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

Oh tierra del sol!, suspiro por verte
ahora que lejos yo vivo sin luz, sin amor;
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento,
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

It's a real weepy, and a decent singer can evoke the beautiful and the tragic at the same time. Even without knowing the words, it's still possible to appreciate both the sentiment and the beauty of the Spanish language.

Placido Domingo is a particularly decent singer - and a native speaker of Spanish. But I don't get a lot out of his rendition (a low quality video can be seen here). Strangely, for an opera singer, he doesn't seem to have put much emotion into it.

Linda Ronstadt does (seen here) - unsurpisingly, since her background is steeped in the Mexican tradition. Quite a creditable performance, although it has a bounce than rather belies the gravitas of the sentiment.

The best performance I've heard comes from Harry Dean Stanton, the well-known actor. Firstly, the arrangement is rather different from others - and it suits Stanton, who cuts out the high notes without loss. And he sounds so melancholy - as if his rehearsal consisted of conjuring up the most mournful of his memories.

The tune can be heard in the film Paris, Texas - but only as an instrumental by Ry Cooder. Stanton's singing can only be heard on the soundtrack to the film. One could say that Wim Wenders had his reasons for dropping the singing from what is ultimately a very moving film. But Stanton's version is so thoroughly moving that it would have enhanced the film if deftly slotted in.


Well, we live and learn. Meanwhile, we are fortunate to be able to get hold of Stanton's version.

How far I am from the land where I was born
intense nostalgia invades my thoughts

and when I see myself as alone and sad as a leaf to the wind
I want to cry, I want to die of grief.

Oh land of the sun! I sigh to see you now
how far I am now, I live without light, without love

...