3. LAS CIUDADES (THE CITIES)
Lyrics & Music: José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval
I saw you arrive
and I felt the presence of an unknown being;
I saw you arrive
and I felt something I had never felt
I tried to love you
and your love wasn’t fire, wasn’t light;
the distances separate cities,
the cities destroy customs.
I told you goodbye
and you asked me to never
forget you;
I told you goodbye
and I felt once more the strange strength of your love.
And my entire soul was covered with ice
and my entire body filled with cold
and I was on the verge of changing your world,
of changing your world for my own world.
I told you goodbye
and you asked me to never
forget you;
I told you goodbye
and I felt from your love
again the same strange power.
And my entire soul covered itself with ice
and my entire body filled with cold
and I was on the verge of changing your world,
of changing your world for my own world
8. UN MUNDO RARO (A STRANGE WORLD)
Lyrics & Music: José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval
When they talk to you of love
and of illusions
and they offer you the sun
and the whole sky
if you remember me
don’t mention it
because you will feel
true love
And if they want to learn
about your past
it’s necessary to tell a lie
say you come from afar
from a strange world
that you don’t know crying
that you don’t understand love
and that you’ve never loved
Because wherever I go,
I will talk of you, my love
like a golden dream
forgetting the rancor
I won’t say that your good-bye
left me hurt
And if they want to learn
about my past
it’s necessary to tell another lie,
I will tell them I arrived
from a strange world,
that I don’t know of pain
that I triumphed in love
and that I’ve never cried
I have never cried.
VÁMONOS (LET’S GO)
Lyrics & Music: José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval
Drink this bottle with me
on the last drop we’ll leave
I want you to see what oblivion tastes like
without putting your hands over my eyes
Tonight I’m not going to beg you
this night you will leave for real
how difficult to have to forget you
without feeling you no longer love me
The years have taught me nothing
I always make the same mistakes
once again toasting with strangers
and crying with the same pains
Drink this bottle with me
on the last drop kiss me
we will hope there are no witnesses
in case we feel ashamed
If someday we bump into each other by chance,
don’t lower your head nor speak to me face to face
simply we’ll shake hands
The years have taught me nothing
I always make the same mistakes
once againg toasting with strangers
and crying with the same pains
Drink this bottle with me
on the last drop
we’ll leave!
I was tired of pleading;
I was tired of telling her that without her
I’d die of sorrow.
She was past any heeding;
She spoke only to tell me that her love for me
Has no tomorrow.
I felt my life was sinking
In a bottomless pit that was black and murky
Just like my fortune.
I tried finding forgetting
In the style of Jalisco,
But those very mariachis and that tequila,
They just made me cry.
I was tired of pleading.
I raised my glass to toast her while in my eyes the
Tears could be seen.
She could not help conceding,
For this was the last toast that a poor Bohemian
Made to a queen.
The mariachis fell silent.
With no strength in my hand, the glass slipped out, though
I did not feel it.
Now she wanted to stay there
When she saw all my sadness,
But by then it was written that on that evening
Her love would be lost.