Lyr Add: The Black Cockerel (Spanish Civil War)

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BLACK COCKEREL (Spanish Civil War)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 06:44 AM

Does anyone know anything about a song concerned with the Spanish Civil War called THE BLACK COCKEREL?

I am running a MUDCAT permathread called SONGS IN ENGLISH ABOUT THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR and in connection with this have been contacted by Jonathan Carritt enquiring/informing about this song. The song was probably not originally written in English and therefore does not really come within the essential concern of the SONGS IN ENGLISH thread - which is why I am starting a new thread for this song. Below , with his consent, I am reproducing Jonathan Carritt's email about the song.
---------------------------------------------
Dear Geoff Lawes,
                         I am a member of the IBMT and sometime ago had an email from Mary Greening about Spanish Civil War Songs in English.
          Have you ever come across a song called 'The Black Cockerel' . I don't know if it had ever been recorded in English but it has been recorded in Swedish on a LP ' En Sang Ett Vapen' INTERDISC Stereo ILPS 152. It also featured in a TV programme in Sweden which was initially banned for fear of offending Franco. My partner who is Swedish has translated the song into English but, if it was originally in Spanish, it has probably changed somewhat along the way.

       THE BLACK COCKEREL

1. Black cockerel, when you are heard crowing
   it becomes dark, the night has come.
   But when the red cockerel crows
    then the hour of the morning dawns.

chorus:
Wind, the wind shall carry my song away
if I have said what no-one should hear.
Wind, what shall we do?
To the wind I give my song
that nobody might hear.

2. And they meet in an arena
   beak against beak, opposed to each other.
   Spur of iron has the one
   but couage has the other.

3. Black cockerel, do you think you have won?
   Tell me who sharpened the spur?
   The red cockerel never died
   maybe we meet tomorrow.

4. Black cockerel, black as the night
   soon it's time for you to bleed to death.
   The black cockerel is big
   but will never conquer the red one!

         I hope this might be of some interest.

With best wishes

Jonathan Carritt
-------------------------------------------------

Any further information would be interesting.

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 11:26 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 12:52 PM

Geoff

By way of negative evidence: on a recent visit to Valencia, I picked up a two CD set of songs from the Spanish Civil War, complete with texts (Spanish). I don't offhand see anything that corresponds to the above. That said, it seems possible, at least, that it is a traditonal song into which particular meaning was injected at that time.

What do you make of the red/black symbolism?

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 01:01 PM

Got it! The Spanish words (El Gallo Rojo) are HERE

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: brezhnev
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 02:33 PM

Always thought this was an anti-Franco song written by Chicho Sanchez Ferlosio in the fifties or sixties.

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 03:03 PM

brezhnev

You may well be right (or left as the case may be)! Tell us all you know about it, please.

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 03:19 PM

Looks like that's the guy, alright: Click here

Subject: Lyr Add: CUANDO CANTA EL GALLO NEGRO
From: Monique
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 04:37 PM

I copied the lyrics from the link above and translated it. It's a rather literal translation to give an idea of what it means.

Cuando canta el gallo negro
es que ya se acaba el día.
Si cantara el gallo rojo
otro gallo cantaría.

Ay, si es que yo miento,
que el cantar que yo canto
lo borre el viento.
Ay, qué desencanto
si me borrara el viento
lo que yo canto.

Se encontraron en la arena
los dos gallos frente a frente.
El gallo negro era grande
pero el rojo era valiente.

Se miraron a la cara
y atacó el negro primero.
El gallo rojo es valiente
pero el negro es traicionero.

Gallo negro, gallo negro,
gallo negro, te lo advierto:
no se rinde un gallo rojo
mas que cuando está ya muerto.


When the black cockerel sings
The day's coming to an end.
If the red cockerel sang,
Another cockerel would sing (it'd be a different ball game)

Alas, if I ever lie,
Let the singing I'm singing
Be wiped by the wind.
Alas, what a disenchantment
If the wind wiped
What I'm singing.

In the arena the two cockerels
Met, face-to-face.
The black cockerel was tall
But the red one was brave.

They looked at each other
And the black one attacked first.
The red cockerel was brave
But the black one is treacherous.

Black cockerel, black cockerel,
Black cockerel I warn you,
A red cockerel doesn't surrender,
Only when he's (already) dead.

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 06:47 PM

Originally, I assumed the song was contemporary with the SCW - and thought the red/black communist/anarchist image seemed a little abstract, to coin a phrase.

In fact, reading the author's biography, what's interesting is that he might well have rewritten it in later life?

Subject: RE: THE BLACK COCKEREL Spanish CivilWar Song
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:51 AM

Thank you ^&*,Brezhnev, and Monique. Great detective work !
Here is a direct link to the song on YouTube YOUTUBE LINK which I got through the links given above - there are several other versions of the song which come up on the same page.

It does now look as if this is not a contemporary SCW song.

Regards, Geoff