The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #134609 Message #3063249
Posted By: GeoffLawes
29-Dec-10 - 10:39 AM
Thread Name: MANANA: 1930's& Spanish Civil War Song
Subject: Lyr Add: MANANA (Spanish Civil War song)
Does anyone have more information or lyrics about the song Manana?
I think it was a popular song in the mid 1930's and that it was sung in parody form by members of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion who fought for the Republic against Franco.(It is not the Peggy Lee song of the same name.)
The Manana Song can be heard on part VII of the YouTube presentation of the film The Good Fight.
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8bm2mUVu2g&NR=1">HERE at 8.24/9.21
The song is played and sung in this film by International Brigader Ed Balchowsky with the following words:
Oh Quartermaster, Quartermaster, listen I implore,
When will that de-lousing plant stop at our barracks door?
Mosquitoes ? of the infantry are boring from within,
I can't retreat but they advance,Oh when, Oh when, Oh when?
Manana. Manana. That old familiar cry.
Manana. Manana. We'll hear it 'til we die.
When will the canteen have in stock a grapefruit or banana?
Bill shakes his head and mutters low that mystic word, "Manana."
Manana. Manana. That old familiar cry.
The song also appears on the Cd Al Tocar Diana, sung by Max Parker, Folkways FW 05435:Album Notes pdf
It is these liner notes which suggest that the tune was from a popular song of the 1930's.
On the Cd the following words are sung:
There are many words in Spanish that we would like to know.
Dictionaries they are scarce as roses in the snow.
But there is one word in Spanish that you never ought to miss.
So listen carefully and you will find that it is this:
Manana. Manana. That old familiar cry.
Manana. Manana. We'll hear it 'til we die.
When will the kitchen have in stock a grapefruit or banana?
Cook shakes his head and whispers low that mystic word, "Manana."
Manana si, ahora no. No tengo cambio.
Regancha, regancha, regancha. No hay, no hay, no hay.
Yo comprendo. Yo entiendo. Hablo, hablas, habla. Hablamos, hablais, hablan.
This particular Manana song is definitely not the one written and sung by Peggy Lee in the 1940's and which already has a Mudcat thread devoted to it http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=38357#2719408 and which can be heard on YouTube PEGGY LEE'S Manana Song
If anyone can give more information about the 1930'sManana Song in any of it forms I would be very grateful.
Geoff