You're thinking: Mexicans are strange. But there's more going on here than meets the eye. "La Cucaracha" is the Spanish equivalent of "Yankee Doodle"--a traditional satirical tune periodically fitted out with new lyrics to meet the needs of the moment. The origins of the song are obscure, but apparently it's pretty old. Some verses I came across refer to the Moorish wars in Spain, which concluded with the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. (Obviously 1492 was a big year for Ferdinand and Isabella on a number of fronts.) Probably the song itself doesn't go back that far, but in an 1818 book, according to one source, the Mexican writer Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi claimed the song was brought to Mexico from Spain by a captain of marines.
One can find "La Cucaracha" lyrics commemorating 19th-century conflicts in both Spain and Mexico, but verse production didn't really get rocking until the Mexican revolution of 1910-1920. So many stanzas were added by partisans on all sides during this period that today, despite its Spanish origin, the song is associated mostly with Mexico.
Included among the new lyrics were the verses quoted above. Some say the jape about marijuana was directed at the dictatorial Mexican president Victoriano Huerta (ruled 1913-1914), ridiculed by his many enemies as a drunk and dope fiend who lived only for his daily weed. No doubt the four buzzards and the sexton's mouse were lampoons as well.
Some claim la cucaracha refers solely to Pancho Villa, the bandido/revolutionary general who eluded U.S. troops following a 1916 attack on an American border town, only to be assassinated in 1923. Others say the word refers solely to Villa's car or to the soldaderas, female soldiers/camp followers who provided cooking and other comforts to the various armies. These claims are undoubtedly false--the identity of the cockroach varied with the verse--but still, one shudders. If no one knows the verses to "La Cucaracha," it's probably just as well. -
The Straight Dope"La Cucaracha" is a comical satire that has very ancient Spanish origins. In Francisco Rodríguez Marín's book "Cantos populares españoles", published in 1883, he records several verses that deal with the moorish wars in Spain:
De la patillas de un moro
tengo que hacer una escoba,
para que barra el cuartel
la infantería española.
(English)
From the sideburns of a Moor
I must make a broom
to sweep the quarters
of the Spanish infantry
Source:
WikipediaAn uncountable number of verses appear to exist for the song, and various sources alternatively claim a given verse’s subject to be Villa himself, his car, 19th-century female revolutionaries known as soldadera and pre-World War I Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta, among myriad other explanations. One source posits that Villa wrote the song himself as a lampoon of the reactionary Huerta, and nineteenth-century Mexican author José Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi claimed that the tune itself goes back to the fifteenth century and actually came to Mexico from Spain via military men. -
Associated Content, The People' Media Company The song obviously pre-dates Villa birth (1878), and lyrics referring to his car were added during the Mexican Revolution.
