Thanks for my friend Pablo, we have a corrected version of the song and lyrics…
Oooo, oooo, ooooo
Oooo, oooo, ooooo
Me gusta la GUAPERIA
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm,
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm,
Me gusta la GUAPERIA
Ahora si me bote de Guaño (3x)
Un grupo me llama bembe
El otro me llama Guaño
Un grupo me llama bembe
El otro me llama Guaño
El que me entiende me entiende
Y AL QUE NO lo voy matando
Ahora si me bote de Guaño
Cuando llego a la bodega
Me hecho el sombrero pa’ atras
Cuando llego a la bodega
Me hecho el sombrero pa ‘atras
ME DICEN VEN A TOMAR
CONMIGO SI NO HAY BOBERA
Ahora si me bote de Guaño
En seguida que me ven
Que estoy RALLANDO los diente
En seguida que me ven
Que estoy RALLANDO los diente
No saben que van hacer
PA’ PAGARME UN AGUARDIENTE
GUAÑO= seems to refer to “top man”, sly, getting away with something, to outsmart (this makes sense to me in the context of the song); something repugnant, something dirty: related to guano=bat excrement which is black and smelly
BEMBE= refers to big lips of a black person, not always a positive atribute/racist use as a derogatory way or to refer to someone “jokingly” accepted racist knick name for someone: or in this context it refers to someone who has ability to sing. which would explain why they would want to pay him a drink. related BEMBÉ refers to a party with drum playing related to santería religion worship or a nice party not necessarily religious where there is singing too and is very prevalent in cuba.
GUAPERIA= SWAGERING, COCKY MANNER
Y AL QUE NO= and whomever doesn’t (understand)
bobera= being slow minded (he is saying he is not dumb)
RALLANDO=in this context is to “peel” a smile, to flash a big smile
PA’ (PARA) PAGARME UN AGUARDIENTE= to pay for a drink of moonshine
bodega=corner store where they se;; food but also is a bar/they sell liquour
John, so nice reading your post in general. Here is the real deal on the lyrics to ME BOTE DE GUAÑO. I was a very good friend of Alfredo Chocolate Armenteros, credited with writing this tune, although he did not actually write it. He sat with me back in 1970 and laid it out for me, along with his personal anecdotes, as my father’s 78 rpm version was so scratchy that some of the words were not audible.
ME BOTE DE GUAÑO
(Arsenio Rodriguez, Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros)
Primer coro
Uuuu, Uuuu,
Me gusta la guapería.
Uuuu, Uuuu,
Me gusta la guapería.
Segundo coro
Ahora si me boté de guaño (3x)
Un grupo me llama bémbe, ay!
El otro me llama guaño, ay!
Un grupo me llama bémbe, ay!
El otro me llama guaño, ay!
El que me entiende, me entiende,
Y al que no, lo voy marcando.
Segundo coro
Ahora si me boté de guaño…
Cuando llego a la bodega, ay!
Me hecho el sombrero pa’trá, ay!
Cuando llego a la bodega, ay!
Me hecho el sombrero pa’trá, ay
Me dice ven a tomar,
Conmigo si no hay bobéra.
Segundo coro
Ahora si me bote de guaño….
Enseguida que me ven, ay!
Que estoy rallando los dientes, ay!
Enseguida que me ven, ay!
Que estoy rallando los dientes, ay!
No saben que van a hacer,
Pa’ pagarme el aguardiente.
Solo de piano y al mambo…
Tercer coro
Bemberé, ma’ bemberé, (repetir hasta que salga el sol)
Repetir segundo coro
Ahora si me boté de guaño!
Thanks so much, Chico, for sharing the correct lyrics and your story behind them!
Muchas gracias!
All participating on this, I cannot thank you enough!!
Ernest Chico Alvarez, you were close with Chocolate Armenteros……. envy envy….. 🙂 Reflecting on the 70’s, him going through lyrics with you……. priceless gift. My father was a prolific jazz bassist, mainly in Baltimore/Annapolis/D.C. circuit…… between him and his entourage of world-class musicians I also had such a gift….. I could call my father any hour of any night and ask him what the chord changes are to any tune on an album I play over the phone 🙂
My estranged once said “Spanish was written for music……the syllabication is so rhythmic, it’s just a musical language….”.
What I find very often because of the styles I love are Spanish lyrics full of expressions and terms very specific to certain cultures and regions…… just because someone from Honduras speaks Spanish doesn’t mean they know the term “guaño”, for example. My late friend Gali Sanchez, Cuban percussionist closely tied to Santana through many years, was unfamiliar with “guaño”, and as some from other nations suggested, it was “guano” I was hearing. No, I believe guano, other than the empirical meaning, could refer to super-rich soil such as that literally mined from an island?
Anyway, I love learning language through music and this is certainly a treasure here….. I hear the term “vacilon” frequently in Spanish lyrics…… I’m guessing “guaño” is similar? A playboy, not-serious type?
As for performance, John Heffernan I might recall you’d initially posted request on a YouTube video?? My favorite of all performances of this song is the one with Roberto Fonseca. Carlos Calunga is a phenomenal singer, and I must confess Idaña Valdez (sp?) causes some palpitations….. fantastically beautiful smile and harmony voice…… her solo music is a little gentle for my taste as I love a heavy presence of percussion and driving energy. Guajiro Mirabal’s entire “homenaje” to Arsenio Rodriguez is beautiful….. one of my favorite albums of Cuban origins.
Thanks so much for this generous sharing….. when they say Cuban is nearly a language unto itself at the colloquial level, how apparent it is.