The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161962   Message #3852611
Posted By: Pappy Fiddle
26-Apr-17 - 08:56 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Suite Judy Blue Eyes: strange last part
Subject: Lyr Add: Suite Judy Blue Eyes: strange last part
Concerning Crosby Stills & Nash's "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" and the raucous singing at the end: After some considerable listening and thinking, and conferring with a girl from Puerto Rico, I think this is what he sang into the can:

Kay leeeeenda may-a vaya pa' Cuba,
La ray-eena de la mar Caribe.
Quiero so-lo visitarme allí,
Y que tee-stay que no puedo vaya.   Ah ha! Ah ha!
                           (like a pirate's parrot cackling)

What I think he was trying to say was

Que linda que me fuera pa' Cuba,
La reina de la mar Caribe.
Quiero solo a visitarme allí,
Y que triste que no pueda. Ay! Ay!

Which would have meant,

How nice if I could head for Cuba,
The queen of the Caribbean Sea
All I want is to go visit there
And how sad that I can't. Ah, ah! (lamenting)

The rhyme scheme (in Spanish) this way is quite elegant, A B B A, putting "la mar Caribe" against "visitarme allí", which is nice, and "pa' Cuba" against "no pueda", which is poignant.

As can be seen, it's actually a lament over Cuba being closed to travel for so long. A lot of songs have expressed such things.

The deviations in Steven Still's first and fourth lines are not just Gulf Spanish, they are crazy grammar mistakes, altho Still's accent is OK.