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Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves
Over centuries, Andalusian Gypsies developed cante jondo, or deep song, which grew from the experience of exile and marginalization. Although flamenco music enjoys wide popularity today, the words of the songs are often lost in the passion of the performance, or because they are sung in dialect. This is a bilingual sampling of the lyrics and brief commentaries by aficionados.
Will Kirkand is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and translator whose translated works include Lorca’s The Gypsy Ballads and Rómulo Gallegos’ classic novel Canaima. He is the author of a volume of short stories, Ixat Tales.
Will Kirkand is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and translator whose translated works include Lorca’s The Gypsy Ballads and Rómulo Gallegos’ classic novel Canaima. He is the author of a volume of short stories, Ixat Tales.
110 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 24, 2020
When I sing as I please, I taste blood in my mouth. ~ Tia Anica la Pirinaca
Translator and editor Will Kirkland, a poet himself, set out to:
His very helpful introduction reviews the history of cante jondo, a form of flamenco, which originated in the pain of the exiled and marginalized Gypsies who settled centuries ago in Andalusia, in southern Spain. Antonio Machado y Alvarez published the first modern Spanish documentation of flamenco lyrics, music, and singers in 1888. Poet Federico Garcia Lorca and composer Manuel Falla convened a 1922 conference in Granada that sought both to rescue the authentic forms of the music and to protect it from commercial exploitation. Kirkland's 1999 Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves is the first collection of cante lyrics translated to English.
This reminds me of the blues:
I hope you get shot,
So you don't do with no one
What you done with me.
While these seem more existential:
Death came to my bedside
and didn't want to take me;
my trials were not over yet
and when she left I cried.
Man goes through his days
like a stone through the air,
waiting to fall.
But the cante provides solace:
Singing the pain
the pain gets forgotten.
Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves
Translator and editor Will Kirkland, a poet himself, set out to:
present a small bilingual sampling of some of the most striking cante I have found over the years, with their themes of jail, bloody encounters, violent death, love and love betrayed, the loss of a mother, a brother, a dear friend, a lover.He succeeded admirably.
His very helpful introduction reviews the history of cante jondo, a form of flamenco, which originated in the pain of the exiled and marginalized Gypsies who settled centuries ago in Andalusia, in southern Spain. Antonio Machado y Alvarez published the first modern Spanish documentation of flamenco lyrics, music, and singers in 1888. Poet Federico Garcia Lorca and composer Manuel Falla convened a 1922 conference in Granada that sought both to rescue the authentic forms of the music and to protect it from commercial exploitation. Kirkland's 1999 Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves is the first collection of cante lyrics translated to English.
This reminds me of the blues:
I hope you get shot,
So you don't do with no one
What you done with me.
While these seem more existential:
Death came to my bedside
and didn't want to take me;
my trials were not over yet
and when she left I cried.
Man goes through his days
like a stone through the air,
waiting to fall.
But the cante provides solace:
Singing the pain
the pain gets forgotten.
Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves
July 10, 2010
I've been playing flamenco guitar (off and on) and listening to flamenco music for roughly thirty years. I love flamenco singing (cante), but I don't speak a word of Spanish, so I can't follow the words. And Flamenco CDs never seem to include printed copies of the lyrics. So I've pretty much been flying blind all these years, hearing and feeling the emotional impact of the song, without knowing what it was about (except in the most general terms).
This thin volume is just what I've been looking for. It is a collection of flamenco verses presented in both Spanish and English translation. The book focuses on cante jondo, the deeper and more emotional style of flamenco. Most of the verses are soleas and siguiriyas.
The author, Kirkland, is a poet experienced in translating Spanish verse. So the English versions are quite readable---not the stilted awkward prose you sometimes get when verse is translated too literally. Quotations from flamenco aficionados are intermingled among the verses, and the book includes a short history of Flamenco and a brief description of the verse styles.
This thin volume is just what I've been looking for. It is a collection of flamenco verses presented in both Spanish and English translation. The book focuses on cante jondo, the deeper and more emotional style of flamenco. Most of the verses are soleas and siguiriyas.
The author, Kirkland, is a poet experienced in translating Spanish verse. So the English versions are quite readable---not the stilted awkward prose you sometimes get when verse is translated too literally. Quotations from flamenco aficionados are intermingled among the verses, and the book includes a short history of Flamenco and a brief description of the verse styles.
October 9, 2023
The collection of songs all intertwine with each other making perfect sense, giving pure and raw emotion with each page.
November 30, 2007
City lights generally publishes such fantastic books, and this is no exception. It's really such an engrossing subject, and this is a great portrait of a culture.
December 20, 2009
Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves (1999)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews