Los Mono - Promesas - Lyrics Translation

My controversial discussion of Chilean culture and latin music revolved around a semi-recent YouTube hit by Chilean Latin hip hop artists Los Mono (not Los Monos). Below you can find an English translation of the original Promesas lyrics, by Los Mono.



Despite my panning the pan-hispanic cliches in the Los Mono lyrics as yet another reason why everything about the song was "Not Chilean", I've come to realize that I was very much mistaken. I already admitted to that in the original post, the word mula being a very Chilean term for "lame, cheesy, deceitful, lying"-ish.

While looking for the Los Mono - Promesas lyrics translated into English, and augmenting and editing the online translation that I found, I realized there's even more Chilean vernacular. In addition, the intensity of the morality of the message, too, seems to be distinctly Chilean. (It is a common commentary -- generalization, if you will -- that Chileans honor ethics more than Argentineans do. Matt says it's a lot easier doing business in Chile than in Argentina. Chilean cops don't take bribes. Etc).

So before the translation into English of the words in the song "Promesas" by Los Mono, here is a transcription of the Spanish lyrics. I took it from YouTube, where someone was kind enough to transcribe all the letras de Promesas, and I added accents and made some minor edits, I think it's passable, if you notice any mistakes please don't hesitate to make a comment and point them out:

Las palabras son bastantes,
son bastante importantes
cuando hablo pienso antes
hay que hacerse responsable

Mula! Mula!

Decir una cosa una cosa por otra
Es como confuso es como pura boca
Una promesa rota palabras que rebotan
Una persona por delante y por detrás otra
Una promesa trucha, puras palabras mula
Porfa diga la verdad
Y no me prometa lo que nunca llegará

Una vez que se dice algo
Se hace, se cumple, no se pasa por alto
Una vez que se dice algo
Se hacen las promesas no se pasan por alto

Prometé una liebre por un gato
Lo que prometiste lo espero hace rato
Que pasó? Se olvidó? No cachó?
Cuando me lo dijo no ponia atención
Aaaaa q pena q pena q me da
Ya no estoy seguro cuando dices la verdad
Duda duda duda duda duda
Muchas dudas ahora me das

Una vez q se dice algo
Se hace, se cumple, no se pasa por alto
Una vez q se dice algo
Se hacen las promesas no se pasan por alto

Cuando digo algo y lo cumplo
Algo gano yo siento q triunfo
Pero cuando digo mucho me confundo, me siento
Como un gusano como un humano trucho antro

Puede ser, quizás, q yo te llamo
Te lo juro, demás, obvio q vamos
Sí sí sí, como si fuera tan fácil
Mula...

Yo lo se, es difícil decir que no
Pero vale la pena
Entonces vamos a aprender
Como N con O es NO, N con O es NO
Si le pones un "gracias", cuanto mejor
No gracias, señor
Yo esta vez pasó
Para qué le digo que sí sí no ,
Si te confundo a ti termino confundido yo

Una vez q se dice algo
Se hace, se cumple no se pasa por alto
Una vez q se dice algo
Se hacen las promesas no se pasan por alto


Una vez q se dice algo
Se hace, se cumple, no se pasa por alto
Una vez q se dice algo
Se hacen las promesas no se pasan por alto

Etc...

Now, on to the English version. Please note that this is horribly done and by no means is an example of an artistic equivalent, but rather a way to crudely get an approximation of the semantic message across for non-Spanish speakers. Most of it is from the same kind YouTube commentator, but I admit the last stanza was all me, and it's totally ridiculous but still I think it's serving the basic purpose of 'getting the message across'. In the future, I hope to get a much better translation done (that's ain't a promise ;-) and you're definitely invited to contribute by leaving a comment, even if it's only one stanza or even one line. I'm talking rhyme and meter. Here we go:

Words are pretty,
pretty important
I think before I speak
You have to be responsible

La-hame. La-hame!

To say one thing, one thing for another
It's confusing, it's only your mouth
A broken promise, words that bounce back
One person on the front and another on the back
A false promise, only lame words
Please tell the truth
And don't promise what will never come

Once you say something
You do it, you fulfill it, you don't overlook it
Once you say something
You fulfill promises, you don't overlook them

When i say something and i fulfill it
I get something, I feel like i win
But when i say too much i feel confused
I feel like a worm, like a bad human being

Maybe, perhaps, I'll call you
I swear, sure, of course we'll go
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it was that easy
Lame...

Once you say something
You do it, you fulfill it, you don't overlook it
Once you say something
You fulfill promises, you don't overlook them

Words are pretty,
pretty important
I think before I speak
You have to be responsible

I over-delivered on my promise*
I’ve been waiting for a while for what you promised
What happened? You forgot? Didn’t understand?
When he told me I wasn’t paying attention
Aaah, man that sucks, that’s really too bad,
Now I’m not sure even when you’re telling the truth
Doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt
There’s a lotta doubt you’re delivering

Lame!

Etc...

*Okay, so that line is probably me going WAY out into left field, but basically what happened is that the he reversed the phrase dar gato por liebre, which is a Spanish idiom meaning literally "give a cat for a rabbit". When cooked, the two animals are very hard to distinguish and although I think the phrase pre-dates the Spanish Civil War, my Spanish grammar professor in Granada, Spain said that he'd never eaten cat, but he had friends who said it was actually quite rico. But I digress. Basically, dar gato por liebre means to con, cheat or swindle. In an English I'd never heard, "give a pig in a poke" (poke means bag), meaning you can't see what you're getting.

So what Los Mono did was inverse the phrase to dar liebre por gato and since in the original phrase was liebre equated to higher value, then I interpret this to mean that he, for his part, over-delivered. All he needed to do was give a cat, but he gave a rabbit cuz he's cool like that. Further backed up by his assertion:

When i say something and i fulfill it
I get something, I feel like i win

So, take it or leave it this isn't an authoritative translation that's just how my mind works.

Oh, and an interesting side note about the word "lyrics". In Chile lyrics = letras BUT the word lírica IS used if in Chilean hip-hop when, for example, one vocalist will ask for a line to rap off of, "dame una lírica". I think. That's what I remember a local Chilean telling me.