It was in rural towns, in the fields where for many years popular beliefs became our daily bread.

Not only in Venezuela. Latin America and the Caribbean are full of ghosts and ghosts, of souls that fight, of people who help on the roads and then disappear, of beings that could be real or are only imaginary constructions. It is that the peoples build their symbols and narrate themselves.

In urban populations, the media and 'information' build many of the images that cities reflect, but cities also have their ways of building imaginaries and, of course, their ways of narrating (including the looks and graffiti).

Popular music does not escape these narrative forms (rural or urban) and gradually acquires meanings according to the context in which they develop their daily lives, the position and the social space.

Two narrative constructions embodied in popular music draw attention: the exaltation of poverty, and violence against women.

Poverty

Every time we express something verbally, the energy of the word moves and can become a boomerang. For this same reason, responsibility for what is said is important, and in these times even for what is sung.

There are many songs that celebrate the lack of opportunities and that are sung without a notion of the discourse that is set in motion.

Here are some examples:

“Everything was a game/ No more in the bet I placed/ and I lost.

It was a game/ and I lost/ that's my luck”

Lost love. (Author: Pedro Flóres) Performer: María Luisa Landín

“I lost my wallet / I don't have any more money / I don't have any more money / I lost my wallet”

The wallet. (Author: Arsenio Rodríguez) Performer: Larry Harlow with Junior Gonzalez. The Aragón orchestra also has a version.

“What have I done/ to have such bad luck/ what have I done to suffer so much pain/ Sad pain of always living in anguish/ of always living frustrated/ looking for some remedy for my poor situation”.

Bad luck. (Author: Augusto Coén) The original is in charge of Bobby Capó.

The feeling of loss is also transferred to the affective field, to the field of love and here the list goes on and on: Poor man, Innocent poor friend, Geez, Friend of what, and a long etcetera.

Poverty has been one of the most frequently sung themes in popular music, either expressing economic precariousness, social exclusion or cultural discrimination.

This is a subject that must be contextualized in order to analyze it from the perspective of society and the time that produced it.

Poor love. Miltinho

La Violencia

In the bolero, the ranchera song, the tango, the joropo, the vallenato, the bomba and the plena, the merengue, the son montuno there is a wide repertoire of harassing the condition female.

It has to do precisely with the historical time in which the authors of such lyrics developed for whom music had, we repeat, the meaning of their daily lives.

And what was that historical daily routine? Neither the influence of Spain with its burden of machismo and violence, nor the Catholic Church historically occupied with presenting the model of virgins and reminding women of obedience to men and docility cannot be ignored.

In addition to this, we must once again highlight the role of the media and communication in the multiplication of messages that finally achieve an echo... and materialize dramatically.

just learned how to debone a chicken thigh :D

— Christina💛⁷ Fri Jun 21 17:04:13 +0000 2013

Now songs that the public sang and danced to without realizing their content come to the fore. Currently, thanks to the greater scope of both individual and collective social awareness, large audiences realize how pejorative and offensive some lyrics are.

In this case we will take two emblematic examples extracted from salsa, and a Venezuelan ballad that was brought to salsa.

These are songs composed and recorded, and also very widespread (yesterday and still today) that have unfortunately influenced many people who end up exercising violence (physical, psychological, financial) on the female gender, and even see this action as normal.

Las Mujeres Son

Salsa song composed and performed by the so-called 'Niño Bonito' of the Fania Stars, Ismael Miranda, when he was 22 years old, for the album “Oportunidad” with the Larry Harlow orchestra, in 1972. Fania label.

“Hey woman/ you were born to serve the man/ in everything he wants/ you were born to work/ you must give your money/ without any discussion. And if by chance/ you catch him swimming on the flat/ he'll give you some money to buy a second-hand suit.

You have to wash the socks/ all the underwear and you have to cook for him./ Then go out and wash him/ the car of the year/ that he recently bought”.

And the chorus: “Women are, are, are/ Oh look, they are treacherous but they are”…

When Ismael Miranda intones 'Hey woman, you were born to serve men', he is making use of the perspective of domination instilled by religions and patriarchal societies.

Miranda thus calls on women to assume the norm for which they were 'educated' from birth: to imitate the previous women in their family (great-grandmother, grandmother, mother) in meekness before men and in the joy of domestic servitude, in addition to the emotional blackmail that something like: “And if by chance/ you catch him swimming on the flat/ he will give you a little money to buy a suit/ second-hand”.

A whole macho and insulting picture that also culminates when he points out that women are treacherous, but they are, they are, they are.

Si te Cojo

Song inexplicably composed by Bobby Capó and performed by Ismael Rivera with 'Los Cachimbos', the group formed by Maelo himself. It is included in the album 'De todas maneras Rosas' from 1977. Tico label.

“Look mommy, if I catch you flirting, you'll see/ look, go wash, I want my clothes clean/ my pants, rub it, rub it, rub it/ give me a potato, yes, let me see/ then start washing, look I'll not how I count, ummm.

If I catch you flirting with another/ you'll see what a horn I'm going to hit you/ if I catch you winking at another/ I'll punch you in the eye.

I spend sweating for you/ so that you flirt around/ if I arrive and I don't find you here/ pau, pau, pau, I'm going to give you.

Look black, and start scrubbing/ take the rag and start cleaning/ if I arrive and my father is not there/ pau, pau, pau, I'm going to give you.

Later on, don't say that I'm bad, you heard/ you know that I'm cool with you/

but if you don't catch up/ with everything and how good you are/ you'll see, I'm going to hit you/ if I arrive and my dad isn't there/ I'm going to punch you in the eye”.

Machismo and patriarchy. The formula that has also used salsa to impose itself and penetrate the musical culture of the Caribbean and Latin America is recurrent. It is also surprising that Bobby Capó is the author and Ismael Rivera is his interpreter. The height of humiliation is in: "with everything and how good you are / you'll see, what a horn I'm going to hit you". Female vs. Woman?

It is true that Capó composed songs for Rivera such as Las Tumbas, El Incomprendido, Sale el sol, and If I could, among others. But if I catch you? A theme where the relationship between an aggressive composition and the subsequent violent behavior of someone susceptible to it is shown?

Ladrón de tu amor

Song composed by Luis Guillermo González with music by Enrique Hidalgo to be performed by Gualberto Ibarreto on the album 'Gualberto Ibarreto' as the soundtrack of the telenovela “Leonela” in 1984. Sonographic Seal.

Later he had two salsa versions: the one by Louie Ramírez and Ray de la Paz, and the one by the orchestra La Solución, both from 1985.

“That night a homeless man turned your laughter into bitterness/ and without permission he entered your world to steal your tenderness/ And since then he condemned me to never be mine again/ to be lost in my dreams/ to deny me every day/

I am the thief of your love, your bad memory/ I am the name you do not want to mention/ and knowing of your contempt I feel afraid that you will never, never forgive me/

I am the thief of your love and I am confessed/ I know well that you will not be there when I leave/ and even if it hurts more, learn this/ that whoever makes you cry is the one who loves you/ whoever makes you cry is the one who loves you ”.

The absurd began with the work written by Delia Fiallo, a woman, and continued with the theme by Luís Guillermo González for the voice of Gualberto Ibarreto.

The novel, if it can be called that, puts on the table as a normal fact the rape of a young woman, carried out for revenge, and the pain of the rapist because the victim does not accept him during almost the entire plot, violent and permissive plot that paradoxically achieved great national and international acceptance in dark times for gender equality.

If the telenovela was an apology for violence against women, the musical theme was not far behind, for being violative and demeaning: "Learn this/ that whoever makes you cry is the one who loves you." The phrase by Luís Guillermo González is placed here without comments.

The year after it was put on the television screen, two salsa orchestras made their versions to further popularize and even dance misfortune.

The musicians added more aberration to the subject. For example, the vocalist of the orchestra 'La Solución' in his soneo says: “I confess that I did wrong (by) stealing a kiss from you / but there is another reality, and you know it / you also enjoyed that”.

In the version performed by Louie Ramírez, vocalist Ray de la Paz sings: "I love you so much, my life/ my heart calls you/ but look, I hope/ that you can forgive me for stealing your tenderness."

Gender violence was transformed into fashion and trivialized for consumption. Behind authors, orchestras and vocalists is a social framework, the history of peoples, societies, classes.

These issues (and there are many more) show the urgency of unlearning learned roles of violence and submission, which precisely because learned, can be positively transformed from the Gender Perspective. Urgent task.