La Cucaracha (meaning "The Cockroach") is a traditional Spanish language folk song. It is unknown when the song came about. It is very popular in Mexico, and was especially so during the Mexican Revolution. Many alternative stanzas exist. The basic song describes a cockroach who cannot walk. The song has been performed widely.
Contents
Structure
The song consists of verse-and-refrain (strophe-antistrophe) pairs, with each half of each pair consisting of four lines featuring an ABCB rhyme scheme.
Refrain
The song's earliest lyrics, from which its name is derived, concern a cockroach that has lost one of its six legs and is struggling to walk with the remaining five. The cockroach's uneven, five-legged gait is imitated by the song's original 5/4 meter, formed by removing one upbeat (corresponding to the missing sixth leg) from the second half of a 6/4 measure:
La cu-ca- | ra-cha, la cu-ca-ra-cha | ya no pue-de ca-mi-nar por-que no | tie-ne, por-que le fal-ta | u-na pa-ta de a-trás.—Many later versions of the song, especially those whose lyrics do not mention the cockroach's missing leg(s), extend the last syllable of each line to fit the more familiar 6/4 meter.
Verses
The song's verses fit a traditional melody separate from that of the refrain but sharing the refrain's meter (either 5/4 or 6/4 as discussed above). In other respects, they are highly variable, usually providing satirical commentary on contemporary political or social problems or disputes.
Historical evolution
The origins of "La Cucaracha" are obscure. The refrain's lyrics make no explicit reference to historical events; it is difficult if not impossible therefore to date. Because verses are improvised according to the needs of the moment, however, they often enable a rough estimate of their age by mentioning contemporary social or political conditions (thus narrowing a version's possible time of origin to periods in which those conditions prevailed) and/or referring to specific current or past events (thus setting a maximum boundary for a version's age).
Pre-Revolution lyrics
There exist several early (pre-Revolution) sets of lyrics referring to historical events.
Francisco Rodríguez Marín records in his book Cantos Populares Españoles several verses dealing with the Reconquista, which was completed in 1492 when the Moors surrendered the Alhambra to Spain:
Some early versions of the lyrics discuss events that took place during the conclusion of the Granada War in 1492.
One of the earliest written references to the song appears in Mexican writer and political journalist José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi's 1819 novel La Quijotita y su Prima, where it is suggested that:
Whatever the song's origin, it was during the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century that "La Cucaracha" saw the first major period of verse production as rebel and government forces alike invented political lyrics for the song. So many stanzas were added during this period that today it is associated mostly with Mexico.
Other early stanzas detail such incidents as the Carlist Wars (1833–1876) and the French intervention in Mexico (1861).
Revolutionary lyrics
The Mexican Revolution, from 1910 to about 1920, was a period of great political upheaval during which the majority of the stanzas known today were written. Political symbolism was a common theme in these verses, and explicit and implicit references were made to events of the war, major political figures, and the effects of the war on the civilians in general. Today, few pre-Revolution verses are known, and the most commonly quoted portion of the song is the two Villist anti-Huerta stanzas:
This version, popular among Villist soldiers, contains hidden political meanings, as is common for revolutionary songs. In this version, the cockroach represents President Victoriano Huerta, a notorious drunk who was considered a villain and traitor due to his part in the death of revolutionary President Francisco Madero.
Due to the multi-factional nature of the Mexican Revolution, competing versions were also common at the time, including the Huertist, anti-Carranza stanza:
An example of two Zapatist stanzas:
Among Mexican civilians at the time, "La Cucaracha" was also a popular tune, and there are numerous examples of non-aligned political verses. Many such verses were general complaints about the hardships created by the war, and these were often written by pro-Zapatistas. Other non-aligned verses contained references to multiple factions in a non-judgmental manner:
Other verses
Apart from verses making explicit or implicit reference to historical events, hundreds of other verses exist. Some verses are new and others are ancient; however, the lack of references and the largely oral tradition of the song makes dating these verses difficult if not impossible. Examples follow: