The late Armando Manzanero was a colleague of mine when I lived in Mexico City in 1967. Following is an extract from my memoir, “Manzanero, Mexico, My Dear Old San Juan, Moi”:

In 1967, I was transferred from the Berlitz School of Languages in Puerto Rico to that international language school’s equal number in Mexico City. The next day after my arrival in Mexico City, I made my way to the huge, Palacio de Hierro department store, to pick up things I needed. As I was on my way to the exit door, most improbably, I heard my name being called: “COOR-tees!” It was Lupillo Hernández from Tijuana, sitting at the soda fountain with members of, Los Tijuana Five. “What the...” was the only thing that occurred to me. We had not seen or heard from each other since I had left Tijuana, about two years previously. The odds of us meeting there, at that time were absolutely spooky! They were in Mexico for a gig, and were just hanging out when they spotted me. They were just as floored as I was at the improbability. After I had recounted to them my post-Tijuana roaming trail, I asked if they knew the best way to get involved in music in Mexico City. Amazingly, they knew of this little club where a lot of show folk went to network. It surprised me, later, that those guys would know of the place. The people I found there were of a different musical genre and social disposition than those incipient rock ‘n’ rollers. I thanked them for their input and we said our goodbyes.

That very night, I found my way to a little club; it was not the type of place one would stumble into off the street. I do not remember what it was called; it was off Insurgentes south, in the neighborhood of Los Globos and La Fuente, the former a huge dance hall and the latter the most elegant nightclub in Mexico. It was natural that this little, showbiz hangout would be in that vicinity.

I was greeted at the door by an affable host I later discover to be Carlos Lico who, in a very few weeks would be a star all over the Spanish-speaking world. This would come about after he recorded an Armando Manzanero song entitled, “No”. Carlos Lico (as if by a hidden hand) shortly was to introduce me to Manzanero, who himself would capture that same world.

When Carlos Lico learned that my specialty was devising other-language versions of song lyrics, he said a frequent visitor to the club was in need of me. On a later visit, I was introduced to Armando Manzanero, who invited me to collaborate with him at the RCA Victor recording studios.

MANZANERO CONNECTION

Following is an extract from my memoir, “Manzanero, Mexico, My Dear Old San Juan, Moi”:

In 1967, I was transferred from the Berlitz School of Languages in Puerto Rico to that international language school’s equal number in Mexico City. The next day after my arrival in Mexico City, I made my way to the huge, Palacio de Hierro department store, to pick up things I needed. As I was on my way to the exit door, most improbably, I heard my name being called: “COOR-tees!” It was Lupillo Hernández from Tijuana, sitting at the soda fountain with members of, Los Tijuana Five. “What the...” was the only thing that occurred to me. We had not seen or heard from each other since I had left Tijuana, about two years previously. The odds of us meeting there, at that time were absolutely spooky! They were in Mexico for a gig, and were just hanging out when they spotted me. They were just as floored as I was at the improbability. After I had recounted to them my post-Tijuana roaming trail, I asked if they knew the best way to get involved in music in Mexico City. Amazingly, they knew of this little club where a lot of show folk went to network. It surprised me, later, that those guys would know of the place. The people I found there were of a different musical genre and social disposition than those incipient rock ‘n’ rollers. I thanked them for their input and we said our goodbyes.

That very night, I found my way to a little club; it was not the type of place one would stumble into off the street. I do not remember what it was called; it was off Insurgentes south, in the neighborhood of Los Globos and La Fuente, the former a huge dance hall and the latter the most elegant nightclub in Mexico. It was natural that this little, showbiz hangout would be in that vicinity.

I was greeted at the door by an affable host I later discover to be Carlos Lico who, in a very few weeks would be a star all over the Spanish-speaking world. This would come about after he recorded an Armando Manzanero song entitled, “No”. Carlos Lico (as if by a hidden hand) shortly was to introduce me to Manzanero, who himself would capture that same world.

When Carlos Lico learned that my specialty was devising other-language versions of song lyrics, he said a frequent visitor to the club was in need of me. On a later visit, I was introduced to Armando Manzanero, who invited me to collaborate with him at the RCA Victor recording studios.

smash
stem

under foot
nothing

more
than distance
evaporates

from grave
remember
earth

sky
burning

sheets
of skin

torn
pages

hands
behind back

time
trawled
from deep

blessing
ground

nothing
but blessing

feet
touch
soil or sea

everything
evaporates

run

blood

hour
overwhelmed by omens

passages

climb

sleep
soul

ancient
matter
melody

between us bridges

between bridges
spit

moments
through
reeds

body
seams
sewn

bile

doomed
damned
furnace

close
to circle

remembering

recording
voices
gone

come
wanting

go
memory
beloved

mouth

rope

rags

crude
hours

stranger
seconds
short

horse’s hours

battered
in dark

being
taut

torso
wire
in wind

oracle
time

hour
shamed

course
down river

age

epochs
blind
centuries
pass
last

line
waters claim
sleep

walk
amongst other

men
close
in charnel house

this hour
heritage horizon
hell

horse’s hours
coming

garden

tree

branch
& twig

come
alone

know
numbers
nervous

sleep
under bodies
in pit

breath blood

breathe blood
breathe
blood

go
to time's
viper

speaks
to sea

solace

slaughter
sleep

emanations exquisite

extinction
come
dance with horses

weep wind
into wind
with breath

climb

still
so still

so just

just so

crack

fall
behind

fall

fall

fall
in turn

come
with carcass

call

call
business
being

night
simulacra
of serpent

slither
slither

slither

listen
for form

night
on night

body
space

cry

cry

come
chorus

time
last
life

name
uttered in numbers

take
down tree
with teeth

embrace
emanation

time
night

swim
in sleep
serpent

sea
skin
speech
bodies
blood

determine
deed

dialectics
tran taught

carnage
come

cover
mouth

howl

falling
final

victim
viper

walk
wind

distance
such distance
still

hands

moon
damned
night

melody
comes
through crevasse

body
collision

go
blind

skin
night

horizon
hell

go
distance

bridge
to bridge

suicide
time

now
dissolve
horse’s hours

thread
torso
time

interpret motion
stones

inside torso
so
taut

walk across
me to me

trap
in
end

weep
night
witness

come
to corridor
with coils

numbers
indispensable

last
living
bodies upon bodies

embrace
emanation
eviscerates
slowly
so
slowly

word
less wind

touch
tremor

surrender skin
to sea

land
falls

ghost
silt
shape
of skull

elements
eroded
dying days

nights still
a head

a skull

skin

not so

not so

far

cloud
forth
coming

fore
told
annihilation’s
oraison

execution

hanging
fall
from tree

noose’s need

chants
remember

run

come
first

come
breathing blood

sleep
walk

drift
go

ignominy
invincible

after all
night into night

death
down
descent

descend
with wind

slip
under
time

threat
horse here
howling

come
dying
closer

& closer
through passage
come

walking
certainly

down
further down
interminable
intersection/s

dig

do
so

they do
just so

just
fall

listen
sounds
separate

remember
skin
time

axis

meridians

body
this body

clump of chains

remember

dissolve
beneath
surface skin

body
outside orbit

night
unite space

wait

song
stained
death
drenched

perfect

encircled
still
so still
time

time
trawled
from deep

come
quick as knife

identity

space

ceremony
sing

bare
breathe

breath
annihilation
time
remember

fall
inherent

in inception
weep

watch
absent
assemble
in water

still
glance

count

go

make
memory
from mud

consciousness
clay
certain

frame
form

fluid
vital

time
being

names
notations

numbers

flesh
fluent

horizon
hell
close

go
time

movement
absorb
animal
In horse’s hour

exclusive disjunction
between external determination

birds
need not
only to be
birds

what
of wing

go
conceive circles

reciprocal determinations
doctor imagines
ice
bell

another
imagined
body

fatigued

death
time
night

matter

depths
memory
equipped to eliminate
night

wind
into breath

swallow
saliva

wash
time

remember
time

remembers corpse

blade

algebra

body
being
hell

still
space
sound

tremble
as i
tremble
marks
tracks

trace
numbers
for body
beyond

count
balance
of force
gone

fall
fall
with fallen

breath
bile

coming
night
mare

time
now
night

disappear

go
sense
body

cold
came
first

to
last

Étienne Balibar

bury

my head

in her

body

being ballet

of other

opening

other

ocean

to enter

ebony ocean

luminescent

with wings

wrapped

around

one

an

other

pulse
remembering

vocabulary

break
down

bird’s
wing

way you have
with beasts
& martyrs

we are slaves

to movement

watch
rapace glide

gaze
with eyes
closed

first
to last

out
in field

in forest

desecrated
water

pass
through

haunted
hieroglyphs
hewn by horse

in horse’s
hours

forgive flight

what
of wing

need nectar
now


fall
on knees

remember
exact details

place
purpose

ancestral
self stained

be
my twin

weep
longitudes
& latitudes

fall

go on

ring bells
for birds

keep
on going

ceremony
of remembering

arteries

still

torrential

watch water
spill
sleep forever

in forest
with fallen

from depths

you cannot see
sea remembering

whoever we were

we are

créatures
so cruel

leave us

alone

open carcass
some day
or other
night

night
knows
night