Metro Balderas (song)
Encyclopedia
"Metro Balderas", as it is generally known, or more precisely, "Estación del metro Balderas" ("Balderas subway station"), a song by Mexican Rock Musician Rodrigo González or "Rockdrigo" González, refers to a man looking for a woman who got lost in the crowd at Mexico City Metro
station Metro Balderas
.
This song, along with other famous songs such as Distante instante and Balada del asalariado, can be found in the album Hurbanistorias, recorded in 1982. These songs are available online at http://www.rockdrigo.com.mx/
Rodrigo Gonzalez had enormous influence on Mexican rock bands, such as El Tri
and Botellita de Jerez
; his songs have been recorded many times, especially after his death.
In 2003 a tribute album was recorded by the name "Ofrenda a Rockdrigo", which means "An offer to Rockdrigo".
A plaque on Balderas subway station was placed on September 19, 2004 to remember Rockdrigo on the nineteenth anniversary of his death, at 34, when his apartment building collapsed during the big earthquake
of 1985 in Mexico City
.
The original song is built as the monologue of an alienated subject hijacking a subway train, with lines such as:
Get lost from here, mister engineer,
this is a hijack, I'll drive the train. [...]
You better pay attention or I'll shoot you,
haven't you noticed how upset I am? [...]
Freud already said so, I don't recall where:
it's just the experience I have experienced. [...]
Even though this line takes me to my job,
today I'm ready to send it to hell. [...]
Take me to Hidalgo or wherever you want,
but don't take me, no, to Balderas station. [...]
The eyeblink reference to Sigmund Freud
not only suggests some personality traces of the hijacker; it also helps the acid humor of the song and makes us remember that Rockdrigo was interested in Psychology
; as a matter of fact, he formally studied it for a short time, at the Universidad Veracruzana
in Xalapa
.
Once the hijacker's character has been defined, his motivations are eventually revealed and the repeated as a choir all along the song:
Four years ago I lost my girlfriend
in these crowds that form here. [...]
I looked for her at platforms and waiting rooms,
but she just got lost in Balderas station. [...]
It was in Balderas subway station, [...]
...there a wave of people took her away [...]
...there I lost my love [...]
...Darling, I searched for you in every train. [...]
The Balderas subway station, as the downtown crossing of the oldest subway line (Line 1) with the longest one (Line 3), has been known for years for its excessive crowds where people gets easily lost, so the story actually makes plenty of poetic sense for local listeners.
Even if searching four years for a lost girlfriend at a subway station, let alone hijacking a subway train because of it, are unlikely situations, there is located most of the poetic and ironic force of this song; by exaggerating the loneliness and despair of an individual whose emotional life is run over and ignored by the metropolis, gets to put them more in sight.
That subject is far from new; Rockdrigo was fond of universal literature and must have been influenced by some of the many authors who have explored the loneliness of individual in the big city. His intimate and tragicomic tone can be understood in many cultures; but his language is plain and definitely local, chilango
(that is, rooted in Mexico City
), to the point that Rockdrigo was compared with the popular songwriter, singer and urban chronicler Chava Flores, who always used Mexican vernacular music forms and never came even close to been a rock musician.
Despite the obvious differences of age, generation and style between Chava Flores and Rockdrigo we should say that, at that time, such language and subjects were very innovative in Mexican rock, which until then had been confined between translated American and British covers, dancing rhythms, love ballads, some misunderstood virtuosism and a lot of semi-clandestine young protest.
Until the mid-eighties, most conservative groups of Mexican society were wary of Rock because of its load of rebellion and protest, so only artists who wrote mostly about love and used "acceptable" music forms usually tended to prosper. On the other hand, liberal groups, left and intellectuals were also wary of Rock because it was considered an aggression against Mexicanity and a by-product of Imperialism. Maybe the most important contribution by Rockdrigo in his lifetime was to show some kind of compatibility between Chava Flores and Bob Dylan
.
Right there I left my heart smeared [...]
"Smeared" in Spanish is "embarrado", and the song uses this word metaphorically in the very sense of the subject's heart being smeared as butter or any other greasy substance over the walls and floors of the Balderas subway station. In Mexico City slang, the verb "embarrar" is often used as a figure of speech when someone gets run over, physically or else.
, in such marginal places or in some almost clandestine way.
The darkness, slow rhythm and almost ascetic instrumentation of his "rupestre" style (Rockdrigo was dubbed as "the Mexican Bob Dylan
"), contributed along with the difficulty in finding copies for the original version to be scarcely known at that time.
Meanwhile, the veteran band Three Souls in my Mind reappeared in 1985 realigned, renamed as El Tri
, with a new recording company and a much wider commercial reach. Their album "Simplemente", better arranged, produced and sold than all its precedents, was able to touch a broader audience, at the beginning of what came to be a craving frenzy for rock in Spanish.
As El Tri
recorded Metro Balderas and featured it in their album "Simplemente", that came to be the most known version of this song. Music remained without essential changes, even though in the original version Rockdrigo was accompanied only by his guitar and harmonica; El Tri
arranged it for a whole rock band, plus a saxophone, giving it a faster, more rocker, more attractive and less intimate rhythm.
It is in the lyrics where significant changes can be found, which, rather than just a cover, make it a different version. Changes are such that copyright for the song in "Simplemente" is credited to Rodrigo González and Alejandro Lora, veteran leader, vocalist and bass player of El Tri
.
So, many people often think that "Metro Balderas" is an original song by El Tri
; same happens with other songs by Rockdrigo, such as Asalto chido, recorded by Botellita de Jerez
.
Most significative changes in the El Tri
version are:
1. Original version was named "Estación del metro Balderas", but El Tri
version is just "Metro Balderas":
2. All lines about the hijacking, including menaces to the engineer, and the vague and humorous Freudian quote, were suppressed. There are no more "platforms" or "waiting rooms". All references to a train or a train station disappear.
3. Interlocution is no longer to a "Mister Engineer" ("señor operador", as a train driver would be respectfully called), but to a chauffeur; this word ("chofer") is only used for taxi, bus or truck drivers. Then again, "Balderas station" is replaced by "Metro Balderas". So it seems that the story is no longer situated inside the tunnels, but at street level; the individual is not travelling on the subway, but in a taxi, a bus or a truck.
4. Metro Hidalgo, as in the original version, is a centric subway station on Line 3, very close to Balderas. El Tri
replaces "take me to Hidalgo or wherever you want" for new, more distant places, as "La Villa", "la San Simón", "Copilco", "Contreras", "La Curva" or "la Escandón".
The inclusion of new places by El Tri
adds a new hyperbolic twist to the story: La Villa and Copilco are in both extremes of the very long Line 3 (22 kilometers). La Villa can be reached one station before the northern end of the line (Indios Verdes) and Copilco is located one station before the southern end (Universidad).
There seems to be an intention in mentioning the stations located just before both ends, but is feasible to consider that "Indios Verdes" and "Universidad" have too long names to fit into the metrics of the song.
Besides, none of the other places mentioned fit with an existing subway station. San Simón and Escandón neighborhoods are rather far away from Balderas; Contreras, an outskirt area beside wooded mountains, is almost the opposite to Downtown.
"La Curva" was a popular beer saloon at the Del Valle neighborhood, highly praised by El Tri
in another song of the same album, specially written for it.
5. Some lines saying "there I lost my love" were replaced by "there remained the trace of our love".
6. What got "smeared" at Balderas was "my reputation", instead of "my heart". To be "smeared" ("embarrado") in Mexico City
slang can be used as "to be run over", but also in the same sense of calumny it can have in English ("to be the subject of a calumny"), or as "to be accused of being involved in some dirty issue", so this new sense can be feasible, according to the end of the song.
7. What makes all this coherent is revealed to the listener in the last verse, where El Tri
says:
Fue en la estación del metro Balderas,
ahí fue donde ella se metió al talón.
That is, in Mexico City
slang:
It was there, at Balderas subway,
where she entered into prostitution.
Argentine
band Los Enanitos Verdes
made a cover of the El Tri version in 1998 for their "Tracción acústica" album.
In the eighties, a Mexican Rock band, "Grupo Dama", had already recorded a cover of this song.
Mexico City Metro
The Mexico City Metro , officially called Sistema de Transporte Colectivo, is a metro system that serves the metropolitan area of Mexico City...
station Metro Balderas
Metro Balderas
Metro Balderas is an underground station on the Mexico City Metro. It is located in the Cuauhtémoc borough in the center of Mexico City. It is a transfer station along Lines 1 and 3...
.
This song, along with other famous songs such as Distante instante and Balada del asalariado, can be found in the album Hurbanistorias, recorded in 1982. These songs are available online at http://www.rockdrigo.com.mx/
Rodrigo Gonzalez had enormous influence on Mexican rock bands, such as El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
and Botellita de Jerez
Botellita de Jeréz
Botellita de Jerez is a Mexican rock band, formed in Mexico City in 1982. Their music is a fusion of rock, cumbia, and Mexican traditional music like mariachi and son, creating the genre called guacarrock...
; his songs have been recorded many times, especially after his death.
In 2003 a tribute album was recorded by the name "Ofrenda a Rockdrigo", which means "An offer to Rockdrigo".
A plaque on Balderas subway station was placed on September 19, 2004 to remember Rockdrigo on the nineteenth anniversary of his death, at 34, when his apartment building collapsed during the big earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
of 1985 in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
.
Contents of the song
This is a synthesis and not a complete transcription nor a complete translation of the lyrics, which can be found online at http://www.rockdrigo.com.mx/The original song is built as the monologue of an alienated subject hijacking a subway train, with lines such as:
Get lost from here, mister engineer,
this is a hijack, I'll drive the train. [...]
You better pay attention or I'll shoot you,
haven't you noticed how upset I am? [...]
Freud already said so, I don't recall where:
it's just the experience I have experienced. [...]
Even though this line takes me to my job,
today I'm ready to send it to hell. [...]
Take me to Hidalgo or wherever you want,
but don't take me, no, to Balderas station. [...]
The eyeblink reference to Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
not only suggests some personality traces of the hijacker; it also helps the acid humor of the song and makes us remember that Rockdrigo was interested in Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
; as a matter of fact, he formally studied it for a short time, at the Universidad Veracruzana
Universidad Veracruzana
Universidad Veracruzana a public autonomous university located in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Established in 1944, the university is one of the most important in the south-east region of México and has a good projection in all México...
in Xalapa
Xalapa
Xalapa-Enríquez, commonly Xalapa or Jalapa, is the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In the year 2005 census the city reported a population of 387,879 and the municipality of which it serves as municipal seat reported a population of...
.
Once the hijacker's character has been defined, his motivations are eventually revealed and the repeated as a choir all along the song:
Four years ago I lost my girlfriend
in these crowds that form here. [...]
I looked for her at platforms and waiting rooms,
but she just got lost in Balderas station. [...]
It was in Balderas subway station, [...]
...there a wave of people took her away [...]
...there I lost my love [...]
...Darling, I searched for you in every train. [...]
The Balderas subway station, as the downtown crossing of the oldest subway line (Line 1) with the longest one (Line 3), has been known for years for its excessive crowds where people gets easily lost, so the story actually makes plenty of poetic sense for local listeners.
Even if searching four years for a lost girlfriend at a subway station, let alone hijacking a subway train because of it, are unlikely situations, there is located most of the poetic and ironic force of this song; by exaggerating the loneliness and despair of an individual whose emotional life is run over and ignored by the metropolis, gets to put them more in sight.
That subject is far from new; Rockdrigo was fond of universal literature and must have been influenced by some of the many authors who have explored the loneliness of individual in the big city. His intimate and tragicomic tone can be understood in many cultures; but his language is plain and definitely local, chilango
Chilango
Chilango is a Mexican slang demonym for a person born in Mexico City suburbs or its surrounding areas and moved there. Sometimes it has a negative connotation when used principally by someone in one of the 31 sovereign States of Mexico....
(that is, rooted in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
), to the point that Rockdrigo was compared with the popular songwriter, singer and urban chronicler Chava Flores, who always used Mexican vernacular music forms and never came even close to been a rock musician.
Despite the obvious differences of age, generation and style between Chava Flores and Rockdrigo we should say that, at that time, such language and subjects were very innovative in Mexican rock, which until then had been confined between translated American and British covers, dancing rhythms, love ballads, some misunderstood virtuosism and a lot of semi-clandestine young protest.
Until the mid-eighties, most conservative groups of Mexican society were wary of Rock because of its load of rebellion and protest, so only artists who wrote mostly about love and used "acceptable" music forms usually tended to prosper. On the other hand, liberal groups, left and intellectuals were also wary of Rock because it was considered an aggression against Mexicanity and a by-product of Imperialism. Maybe the most important contribution by Rockdrigo in his lifetime was to show some kind of compatibility between Chava Flores and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
.
Right there I left my heart smeared [...]
"Smeared" in Spanish is "embarrado", and the song uses this word metaphorically in the very sense of the subject's heart being smeared as butter or any other greasy substance over the walls and floors of the Balderas subway station. In Mexico City slang, the verb "embarrar" is often used as a figure of speech when someone gets run over, physically or else.
Covers and versions
The original version album, "Hurbanistorias" 1982, was not commercially distributed until a long time after Rockdrigo González was dead; in the mid-eighties, it could only be found in a few music stores, at the Tianguis Cultural del ChopoTianguis Cultural del Chopo
The Tianguis Cultural del Chopo is a Saturday flea market near Mexico City downtown, known locally as El Chopo. It is named after its original location which was near the Museo Universitario del Chopo, an art deco building with a couple of towers designed by Bruno Möhring...
, in such marginal places or in some almost clandestine way.
The darkness, slow rhythm and almost ascetic instrumentation of his "rupestre" style (Rockdrigo was dubbed as "the Mexican Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
"), contributed along with the difficulty in finding copies for the original version to be scarcely known at that time.
Meanwhile, the veteran band Three Souls in my Mind reappeared in 1985 realigned, renamed as El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
, with a new recording company and a much wider commercial reach. Their album "Simplemente", better arranged, produced and sold than all its precedents, was able to touch a broader audience, at the beginning of what came to be a craving frenzy for rock in Spanish.
As El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
recorded Metro Balderas and featured it in their album "Simplemente", that came to be the most known version of this song. Music remained without essential changes, even though in the original version Rockdrigo was accompanied only by his guitar and harmonica; El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
arranged it for a whole rock band, plus a saxophone, giving it a faster, more rocker, more attractive and less intimate rhythm.
It is in the lyrics where significant changes can be found, which, rather than just a cover, make it a different version. Changes are such that copyright for the song in "Simplemente" is credited to Rodrigo González and Alejandro Lora, veteran leader, vocalist and bass player of El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
.
So, many people often think that "Metro Balderas" is an original song by El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
; same happens with other songs by Rockdrigo, such as Asalto chido, recorded by Botellita de Jerez
Botellita de Jeréz
Botellita de Jerez is a Mexican rock band, formed in Mexico City in 1982. Their music is a fusion of rock, cumbia, and Mexican traditional music like mariachi and son, creating the genre called guacarrock...
.
Most significative changes in the El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
version are:
1. Original version was named "Estación del metro Balderas", but El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
version is just "Metro Balderas":
2. All lines about the hijacking, including menaces to the engineer, and the vague and humorous Freudian quote, were suppressed. There are no more "platforms" or "waiting rooms". All references to a train or a train station disappear.
3. Interlocution is no longer to a "Mister Engineer" ("señor operador", as a train driver would be respectfully called), but to a chauffeur; this word ("chofer") is only used for taxi, bus or truck drivers. Then again, "Balderas station" is replaced by "Metro Balderas". So it seems that the story is no longer situated inside the tunnels, but at street level; the individual is not travelling on the subway, but in a taxi, a bus or a truck.
4. Metro Hidalgo, as in the original version, is a centric subway station on Line 3, very close to Balderas. El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
replaces "take me to Hidalgo or wherever you want" for new, more distant places, as "La Villa", "la San Simón", "Copilco", "Contreras", "La Curva" or "la Escandón".
The inclusion of new places by El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
adds a new hyperbolic twist to the story: La Villa and Copilco are in both extremes of the very long Line 3 (22 kilometers). La Villa can be reached one station before the northern end of the line (Indios Verdes) and Copilco is located one station before the southern end (Universidad).
There seems to be an intention in mentioning the stations located just before both ends, but is feasible to consider that "Indios Verdes" and "Universidad" have too long names to fit into the metrics of the song.
Besides, none of the other places mentioned fit with an existing subway station. San Simón and Escandón neighborhoods are rather far away from Balderas; Contreras, an outskirt area beside wooded mountains, is almost the opposite to Downtown.
"La Curva" was a popular beer saloon at the Del Valle neighborhood, highly praised by El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
in another song of the same album, specially written for it.
5. Some lines saying "there I lost my love" were replaced by "there remained the trace of our love".
6. What got "smeared" at Balderas was "my reputation", instead of "my heart". To be "smeared" ("embarrado") in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
slang can be used as "to be run over", but also in the same sense of calumny it can have in English ("to be the subject of a calumny"), or as "to be accused of being involved in some dirty issue", so this new sense can be feasible, according to the end of the song.
7. What makes all this coherent is revealed to the listener in the last verse, where El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
says:
Fue en la estación del metro Balderas,
ahí fue donde ella se metió al talón.
That is, in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
slang:
It was there, at Balderas subway,
where she entered into prostitution.
Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
band Los Enanitos Verdes
Los Enanitos Verdes
Enanitos Verdes is a successful rock trio from Argentina, formed in 1979 in the city of Mendoza...
made a cover of the El Tri version in 1998 for their "Tracción acústica" album.
In the eighties, a Mexican Rock band, "Grupo Dama", had already recorded a cover of this song.