On the corners together you’ll find us,
‘Neath the street-lights at mid-night we’re there,
Our spirits like smoke that blows through the night,
rest-less but going no-where.
Trouble is all we can give you,
Trouble is all we have known,
Our lives like water that runs through our hands,
Leaving us unloved & a-lone.
Our fathers, they say, were just like us;
Our children will all be the same –
Hair like black leather and skin brown as wood,
Speaking a low Spanish name.
Remember our mothers who gave us our lives,
Like grass in the spring of their year?
They left us behind with hearts light as wine,
Their breasts undissolved in our tears.
The things that I do are all very bad things;
I do them and then don’t know why.
You hold up your sons with their blue or brown eyes
And tell me they’re better than I.
My friends, they too all despise me;
I do all the wrong they had planned;
And all that I have for the years of my life
Is a cross that I’ve carved on my hand.
They put me in jail behind iron bars,
You’ll find me with blood on my hands;
And tomorrow I’ll stand up in front of the guns
And I’ll give you the life you demand.
But tonight, as you sit at your table,
With your wife and your child close by,
Remember this corrido my young blood has made,
And now, mi amigos, goodbye.
‘Neath the street-lights at mid-night we’re there,
Our spirits like smoke that blows through the night,
rest-less but going no-where.
Trouble is all we can give you,
Trouble is all we have known,
Our lives like water that runs through our hands,
Leaving us unloved & a-lone.
Our fathers, they say, were just like us;
Our children will all be the same –
Hair like black leather and skin brown as wood,
Speaking a low Spanish name.
Remember our mothers who gave us our lives,
Like grass in the spring of their year?
They left us behind with hearts light as wine,
Their breasts undissolved in our tears.
The things that I do are all very bad things;
I do them and then don’t know why.
You hold up your sons with their blue or brown eyes
And tell me they’re better than I.
My friends, they too all despise me;
I do all the wrong they had planned;
And all that I have for the years of my life
Is a cross that I’ve carved on my hand.
They put me in jail behind iron bars,
You’ll find me with blood on my hands;
And tomorrow I’ll stand up in front of the guns
And I’ll give you the life you demand.
But tonight, as you sit at your table,
With your wife and your child close by,
Remember this corrido my young blood has made,
And now, mi amigos, goodbye.
Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2014/5/27 - 11:31
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Parole e musica di Utah Phillips (1935-2008), pubblicate nel 1973.
Trovo la canzone, in ordine temporale, nel disco della folksinger Rosalie Sorrels intitolato “If I Could Be The Rain” del 1967, nel disco di Utah Phillips intitolato “El Capitan” del 1975 e nel suo quadruplo disco compilativo intitolato “Starlight On The Rails: A Songbook”.
Anche nel disco collettivo intitolato “Long Gone”, tributo a Bruce “Utah” Phillips realizzato nel 2010.
Una canzone dedicata a Jesse Garcia, un giovane ispanico cresciuto da orfano e finito in galera a Salt Lake City a soli 16 anni per stupro ed omicidio. In prigione Jesse Garcia divenne uno strumento nelle mani dei più forti, che lo usavano come oggetto sessuale e per i lavori sporchi. Quando emerse uno scandalo per un grosso giro di droga all’interno della struttura penitenziaria, Jesse Garcia e un altro ragazzo, tal Rivenberg, furono incaricati di (leggasi costretti a) far fuori la presunta “talpa”. Così i due capri espiatori, mentre i mandanti facevano finta di niente, furono condannati a morte. Quando nel 1962 Rivenberg si suicidò in cella con un’overdose, stanco dei continui rinvii che lo avevano portato per ben cinque volte quasi a sedersi sulla sedia del boia, i carnefici forse pensarono di aver avuto comunque la loro vittima sacrificale e commutarono la pena a Garcia in ergastolo. Jesse Garcia, che fino a quel momento era stato considerato un bruto irrecuperabile da far fuori senza pietà o da istituzionalizzare in isolamento per sempre, fu affiancato da un docente della Utah University e riuscì in pochissimo tempo e brillantemente a conseguire la licenza primaria e poi quella superiore…