Coplas del payador perseguido [English translation]

If you'll excuse me I'll get in

though I'm not invited

but in my field, a barbecue

is of nobody and of everyone.

I'm gonna sing my way

after I ate stake.

I have no God to ask

for an excuse this time,

and I can't apologize

if I haven't disrespect yet;

I'll see when I'm done;

but that's another issue.

I know many will say

I'm very insolent

if I set my thought

to the way I chose,

but I always was that way;

I gallop against the wind.

I carry it in my blood

since my great great grandfather.

People of feet on the ground

were my forefathers;

creoles of four provinces

and mixed with natives.

My grandpa was a cart driver,

my dad was a horse breaker;

they never looked for a doctor

because they healed themselves with herbs

or listening the murmurs

of some music of my youth.

As a good country ranch

never missed a guitar,

of those that seem nothing

but are sounding.

According to the song and the hour

the soul was left wore out.

My dad was knowledgeable

because of the much he walked.

And after he sang

he got the guitar out of tune,

and put a poncho on it

"so he doesn't talk a lot..."

Blood has reasons

that make the veins swell.

Pain over pain and pain

make someone yell.

Sand is a handful

but there are mountains of sand

I don't know if my singing is pretty

or if it comes out a bit sad;

I never was a thrust, and there isn't

a more ordinary plumage.

I'm a pirate bird

who doesn't know the bird seed.

I fly because I don't crawl,

because crawling is the ruin;

I make nest in a thorn tree

like on the mountains

without listening to the nonsense

of who flies like a chicken.

I don't bring myself like that

to the flowered gardens.

I accidentally live aware

for not stepping on the stick.

There are birds who by themselves

get caught for being boastful.

Though I suffered a lot

prudence doesn't shackle me.

It's a false experience

to live trembling to everything.

Each one has a way;

rebellion is my science.

I was born poor and I live poor

that's why I'm delicate.

I'm with the ones on my side

all working hard evenly

to make new what is old

and see the world changed.

I'm an average Joe,

I'm not a greenhouse flower.

I'm like the clover of La Pampa,

I grow without making noise.

I squeeze against the weed

and that's how I endure the pampero 1

Accustomed to the hills

I never make myself dizzy,

and if I feel myself praised

I leave slowly.

But who is boastful

pays to make himself note.

If somebody calls me Sir,

I thank the homage;

but, I'm a gaucho among them

and I'm nothing among the wise.

And are for me the insults

they do to the civilians.

Vanity is a bad weed

that poisons all the patch.

One needs to be aware

handling the hoe,

but there's the man

who waters it even at the door.

Work is a good thing,

is the best thing of life;

but life is lost

by working on a foreign field.

Some work of the thunder

and the rain is for the others.

I worked in a quarry

of stones to sharpen.

They knew to pay forty

for each polished stone,

and it was sold at six pesos

in this of the negotiation.

As soon as the sun came up

I was already hammering,

and between two I was holding

the great stones

and because of those stones

I shattered my hands.

Some other time I was a baker

and a lumberjack in a quebracho grove;

I loaded salt blocks

and also peeled canes,

and a handful of other deeds

for my best or my worst.

Trying to civilize myself

I was a clerk helper;

I wrote with little letters

to not waste seals,

and it was also short

the salary I received.

Tired of many miseries

I went to Tucumán.

Robles, alders, myrtles,

and axe with the carobs.

For two with fifty! It was a robbery

for one to have that desire.

Without being fixed in a place

I did any kind of job,

and so it happened that one day

I was doing like a great kiskadee

I met a mule driver

who came from Salta.

I felt like walking

and I agreed on the foreman,

and so, suddenly

the man asked me:

Do you have a mule? Of course

I said. And lots of hunger.

After a week

I went to the tops of mountains,

slopes, hills and hillsides

always on the west side,

drinking watershed water

and bearing the sun.

Maybe someone else had walked

as much as I did,

and I swear, believe it,

that I've seen so much poverty,

that I thought sadly:

God wasn't there.

A cow tumbled

because of the dimwittedness,

and the prayer found us

skinning and doing a barbecue;

since that day, friend

my knife wore out.

I shook of the frost

when I went down of the Andes,

and I've been in big ranches

taking care of some horses;

trumpet, cover and hat

but for the workmen, from where?

The workmen, to the waste ground,

the boss, in Buenos Aires.

We, the neck exposed

with the wet faces,

and the wintering farm

more brilliant than a friar.

The farm owner had

also his reedbeds,

and on autumn

we collected the rags,

and we weren't going down

leaving the rocky grounds.

They were gathering us there

in sets with other creoles,

each one looking for his hole

where to build his den,

and so we spent life

treated harsh and without support.

Nothing was lacking there:

wine, coffee and sandals.

I indeed had moved my feet

in gatos and chacareras.2

The things were hard only

at the time of earning.

What an uneven life!

Everything is cruelty and lies;

Peeling cane is a feat

for who was born for harshness.

There was a single sweetness

and it was inside the cane.

It was a consolation for the poor

to smell like wine.

Great men and boys

like cursed in life,

slaves to the drink

they were getting drunk.

Sad Sundays of the furrows

the ones I've seen and lived!

Wasted and asleep

they would wake up in the sand,

maybe they would dream

with death or oblivion...

Men from La Rioja, Santiago,

Salta and Tucuman,

with the machete in the hand

they were turning mature canes over,

spending their bitterness

and enduring like brothers.

A ranch with maloja 3roof,

habitat of the peeler!

In the middle of that harshness

there was always a guitar,

by which the poor consoles himself

singing love stanzas.

Me too, who since little

I was raised with the singing,

I asked help more than once

and I sang to the workmen.

What was happening to them

it was happening to me too!

When I learned to sing

I made joints with few rolls.

And by the shore of a brook

under the branch of a willow

I grew looking at the riverbed

my dreams of poor creole.

When I felt a joy;

when pain hit me;

when a doubt bit

my countryman heart,

from the bottom of the plains

a song came and healed me...

In those times were happening

things that no longer happens.

Each one had his singing

or a nightfall stanza.

Ways of healing the wound

that bleeds on the move.

Some sang good...

Others, bad, more or less...

But they weren't foreign songs,

thought they weren't marked.

And everyone had fun

playing guitar until the dawn.

Sometimes a teacher came,

from those literate towns;

he gathered troops and verses

that were going then to a book

and the man was getting rich

with what the others thought.

The workmen made verses

with their old pains.

Then come the sirs

with a notebook in a hand,

they copy the country singing

and boast of being writers.

The creole takes care of his charter,

his guitar and his woman;

he feels he faces a duty

every time he gives his hand;

and though he's knowledgeable for all

only the singing will lose.

Stanzas that made him company

in the desert ravines,

smells of dead flowers

and lived risings,

were the lights on

for his awake nights!...

He gets upset if he loses

a muzzle, a whip,

but he doesn't feel rage

if by listening a song

a town man comes and steal

his best love song.

Surely, if one thinks,

finds the knot to the skein,

because the oldest stanza,

like the root of life,

has the soul as a den,

where complains make nest.

That's why the man when he sings

with true emotion,

throws his pain outside

for the wind to take it,

and so, even for a moment

he gets relieved.

Is not that he doesn't love his song

nor he despises his song.

It's like when a damage

in the night of the plains

makes the countryman slack

and the wind carries his crying.

In the singing matters,

life is teaching

that only flies

the stanza that is light.

Always hunts pigeons

whoever is hunting...

But if the song is a protest

against the boss law,

it crawls from workman to workman

in a deep murmur,

and goes level with the weeds

like a click in a raid.

A thousand songs can be lost

where they sing love,

verses of joy, pleasures,

races and fun;

whispers of hearts

and lyrical sufferings.

But if the stanza tells

the story of the countrymen,

where the workman turns on the wheel

of the suffered miseries,

that one, stays attached

like a thistle in the memory!

What made us graceful

maybe can be forgotten;

the years in its passing

will change the thoughts.

But anxieties and worries

are marks that will last...

These things I think

doesn't come from the wit.

To make my experience

I chew before I swallow.

It was long the walking

from where I got thee warning.

If one pulses the guitar

to sing stanzas of love,

of horses, of tamer,

of the hills and the stars,

they say: How beautiful!

He sings like an angel!

But if one, like Fierro,4

goes thinking over there,

the poor comes closer

with the ears on the alert,

and the rich peeps the door

and runs away.

He must trace well his land

who calls himself a singer,

because only the impostor

gets cozy on every footprint.

May he picks a single star

who wants to be a sower...

In the trance of choosing

may the man looks inside,

where meetings are made

between thoughts and feelings.

Then may he goes anywhere

with the conscience as a center.

There are different piles,

some big, some small.

If goes to the rich pile

the poor who thinks little,

behind the mistakes

come the harms.

I come from way below,

and I'm not way up.

I give my song to the poor

and so I become happy,

because I'm in my element

and there I worth for what I am.

If I ever sang

before big belly bosses,

I spurred the deep

reason of poorhood.

I don't betray my people

for applauses or foot stomps.

Though I sing on every path

I have a favorite path.

I always sang shaking

the sorrows of the countrymen,

the exploitation and the outrage

of my loved brothers.

For things to change

I looked for a path and I got lost;

time after, I found out

and I walked on the right track.

Before anything, I'm Argentinian;

and I followed my flag...!

I'm from the north and the south,

from the plains and the shore;

and may nobody offends

if there's a thousand grams in a kilo.

Anywhere I'm calm

but I'm wild when I'm saddled.

The singer must be free

to develop his science.

Without looking for convenience

nor enlist with godfathers.

From those dark paths

I already have experience.

I sing, for being old

songs that are eternal;

and even seem modern

by what we see in them.

We get covered with the song

to make the winter warm...

And I sing to the tyrants

neither by order of the boss.

The rascal and the liar

may they sort out their way

with bought payadors

and hall singers.

By the strength of my singing

I know cell and prison.

With a peerless cruelty

I've been beaten more than once,

and thrown to the jail

like garbage to the dump.

They can kill a man.

they can stain his face,

they can burn his guitar.

But the ideal of life,

is that lit wood

that nobody can quench!

The evil are rising

everything they find over there;

like corn seeds

they sow the worst examples,

and the country's decency

temple falls apart.

Behind the gold noise

come the lazy like a collector;

there's always a weak who sells himself

for a dirty coin;

but there's always in my beloved land

countrymen who defends it.

Singer who sing for the poor

won't shut up even dead.

Because wherever goes

the song of that man

there will be a countryman

who makes him resurrect.

The farm boss boasts

of cowboyism and arrogance.

He believes that is extravagant

that his workman lives better.

But, that man doesn't know

that he has a farm because of him.

The one ho has his coins

does very well in keeping them safe;

but if he wants to increase them

may he doesn't play deaf before the law.

That on every thick stew

corns become corncob.

One day, without a job,

I was by Tucuman,

and in an inn, where go

early morning singers,

I came close to the payada

that was always my eagerness.

Even missing the riding

I stacked to an instrument.

And after a while

I opened the door to a baguala,5

with a thin stanza

of those that the wind take.

Maybe was the guitar

So pretty it sounded!

My heart rose up

sadness of the roads,

and I cursed the destiny

that gave me so much pain.

A man came near

and said; What are you doing here?

Travel to the city

they will understand you;

there you will have fame, pleasure

and money to gift.

Why did I listened him!

It was devil's voice!

Buenos Aires, gringo city,

had me pressured.

Everyone were staying at one side

like body to the needle.

And I didn't came poor

because I had new sandals.

The old one for the rain

I put them in the saddlebag;

grey colored pants

and a frock coat.

Jumping from radio station to another

I was, imagine it.

I spent four months

in unlucky rounds;

nobody assured anything,

and I was left without money.

I sold my pretty saddlebags.

My guitar, I sold it!

I my poverty deary me,

I'd like to keep it.

So much costed me to buy it

But anyway I lost it all!

Guitar, where are you,

what hands are playing you.

Whole nights thinking

even as a consolation,

that a song of this ground

be what comes out of you...!

When the corn is in fallow

it shows a shiny color;

the threads, like a nylon

boast with their pretty things.

But they lower their heads

if the coal catches them.

It happened to me too

in those gone times;

young, strong, boastful,

and when the cheese ran out,

I returned in a sad comeback

with the soul full of oblivion.

Things of youth...

God, where are you!

Now that I'm all grey

of changing my hair so much,

I remember those sleeplessness

but I don't look back.

I returned to Tucuman

to suffer again.

And in that of going and seeing

many r¡years will pass

among pains, delusions,

hopes and pleasure.

But, it wasn't wasted time,

according to what I saw after.

Because I knew well how is

the life of the countrymen.

Of all of them I felt like a brother,

thoroughly.

I always remember the times

I spent swaggering,

the hills I crossed

looking for what I couldn't find,

and sometimes I remained

by those fields standing.

Life has been teaching me

what a guitar worths;

for it I've been on parties

maybe made a mess,

and I almost get caught by the vice

with their invisible claws.

At least I carry inside

what the land gave to me.

Motherland, race or whatever,

but it was saving me,

and so, I kept walking

by the roads of God.

The thing was in thinking

that when pulsing the instrument

one hast to give with feeling

all the field strength

But nobody releases anything

if they have nothing inside

The guitar is a hollow stick

and to play something good

the man must be full

of internal brightness

To sow eternal stanzas

life is a good plot!

If praying gives consolation

to who needs them

Like a christian in a mass

or a wild man in the mount

I pray in the horizons

when the evening falls

The pampa remains silent

when the light fades

The southern screamer and the ostrich

are searching for the thickness

and in the plain gets bigger

the loneliness of the ombu tree

Then, like a poncho

one gets wrapped by the land

from the plains to the mountains

a shadow spreads

and the soul understands

the things that the world has

There's the right moment

of thinking of the destiny

If the man is a pilgrim

or he searches for love or fondness

or he serves a sentence

of dying in the roads

In the north I saw things

that I'll never forget

I saw gauchos fighting

with caronero knives

or with cane blades

that one is afraid of seeing them

The countryman rarely kills

because he doesn't have that instinct

The creole mourning comes

for not running away a little

He tells that he isn't one armed

and haves fun fighting

There's no bloodthirsty hill man

nor a chattering coya

The ablest tamer

never tells his feats

and they're not tempted by the cane

because the wine is better

Every field likes

a way of fighting

And who wants to swagger

he must warn first

Because for getting out

one must know how to get in

They fist fight

like anywhere

but it's a different thing

to use the field ways

There things get heavy

like don Narvarte said

Cordoba man, for the stones

Rioja man, for the whips

Chilean, for the horse kick

Salta man, with knife in hand

And the Tucuman man is the king

For head fighting

The creole man always fights

at night and half stained

What a shame, man

that sometimes for a tuna

starry skies and moonlight nights

get cloudy

A song comes out easy

when one wants to sing

It's a matter of seeing and thinking

about the world things

If the river is wide and deep

who knows to swim can cross it

Let the others sing happiness

if they lived happily

I also knew

to sleep in those ruses

But were much more the years

of received bumps

Nobody can point me out

that I sing because I'm bitter

If I've been through what I've been through

I want to serve as a warning

Wandering isn't a science

but neither a sin

I wandered through the world

I crossed lands and seas

Without borders that stop me

And on every shelter

I sang, dear land

your sorrows and joys

Sometimes, came to the singing

like cows to the water

to listen to my stanzas

men of all the corners

braiding their feelings

to the beat of the guitar

Woe is who doesn't know

the beauty of the singing

The darkest of lives

the one with more damages

will always find in the song

consolation for their sadness

They say they don't have songs

the rivers that are deep

But I learned in this world

that who has more deepness

sings better for being deep

and makes honey from his bitterness

With the stumbles of the road

the loads start to bend

But is a law that in the long road

they must adjust

And who forgets that

will have bad times

Friends, I'm leaving

this done part of mine

In the preferred way

of a milonga of La Pampa

I sang in a plain way

certain things of life

Now I'm leaving, I don't know where

every path is good for me

Since the fields are of no one

I cross them with a small gallop

I don't need a den

I can sleep in the open

There's always a ruined room

in the slope of a range

And while I keep going this war

of injustices for me

I'll think from there

songs for my land

And even if they take my life

or jail my freedom

And even if they burn

my guitar in the fireplaces!

My songs will live

in everyone's soul!

Don't name me, because it's a sin

And don't talk about my trills

I'm leaving with my destiny

to where the sun fades

Maybe someone will remember

that an Argentinian sang here!

1. A cold and strong wind in Argentina2. Argentinian folk dances3. residue of burned sugarcane leaf4. Martin Fierro5. Argentinian folk song

• Artist:Atahualpa Yupanqui