La Luna - Around This World

17. La Luna
Country: (many)
Language: Spanish
Genre on CD: Plena
Instruments on CD: Barriles, Bass Drum kit,
Trombone, Trumpet
“La Luna” on AllAroundThisWorld.com
About the song:
“La Luna” is a children's song found in several parts of Latin America that accompanies a game
during which all the kids dance in a circle around one child who stands in the middle. When the
lyrics of the song reach, "Ay ay ay!" the circling children scream "Ay ay ay!" into the ear of the
child in the middle. The original lyrics of this song include references to the Spanish region of
Catalonian, Catalonian soldiers and the Spanish king, all of which may possibly be a reference to
the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714)? The words in our version are more poetic: "I'd like to
be the moon way up high high high.... I'd like to be a dove so I fly fly fly . . ." Listen to a clip of the
tune from Chago Rodrigo's Smithsonian Folkways album.
About the genre:
Plena is a an Afro-Puerto Rican rhythmic genre that developed in the early 20th century in
southern Puerto Rico as "the newspaper of the people." Lyrics of plena songs would often be
topical, addressing social themes or offering political satire. There are many drums used in
plena, but one that almost always appears--though not in our song--a small hand drum known
as a pendereta, which improvises over the rhythms of other drums.
More info: Bailala: a rockin' example of Plena
Puerto Rican plena and bomba
Smithsonian folkways helps us compare
About the instruments:
Barriles (barrel drums): image
video 1
video 2 (how to build a bomba)
The panderta appears in most plenas, though not ours.
Non-English words in our version:
Quisiera ser tan alto como la luna, Ay-ay-ay! Como
la luna Quisiera ser paloma y poder volar, Ay-ay-ay!
y poder volar
basically means:
I’d like to be as the moon way up high, high, high, Ay-ay-ay! way up high, high, high. I’d like to
be a dove so I could fly fly fly, Ay-ay-ay! I could fly fly fly
17. La Luna
Country: All over Latin America
Language: Spanish
Genre on CD: Plena
G
C
G
D7
Quisiera ser tan alto como la luna, Ay-ay-ay! Como la luna
G
C
G
C D7 G
Quisiera ser paloma y poder volar, Ay-ay-ay! y poder volar
G
C
G
D
I’d like to be as the moon way up high, high, high, Ay-ay-ay! way up high, high, high.
G
C
G
C D7 G
I’d like to be a dove so I could fly fly fly, Ay-ay-ay! I could fly fly fly
LA LUNA
Eggs
Region: South America
Language: Spanish
Translation and Arrangement
by Jay Sand
q = 120
#4
& 4‰
j
œ
G
C
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
Ϫ
Qui - sie - ra
I'd
like to
4
#
Ay
Ay
#
#
al
moon
to
co - mo
way up
Ϫ
-
œ
ay
ay
-
œ
œ
ay!
ay!
œ
Co - mo
way
up
Ϫ
Ϫ
la
high,
lu high,
G
œ
œ œ œ
œ
sie - ra
like
to
ser
be
pa - lo
a
dove
ma
so
œ
y
I
œ
œ
Ϫ
-
ay
ay
œ
-
ay!
ay!
œ
œ
Y
I
Ϫ
na.
high.
Ϫ
Qui I'd
Ó
œ
vo fly,
C
D7
G
Ϫ
Ϫ
œ
der
fly,
vo
fly,
œ
po could
j
œ
‰
œ
po - der
could
fly,
G
Ay
Ay
la
lu - na,
high, high, high,
C
œ
& Ϫ
Ó
œ
D7
& œ
8
tan
the
G
& Ϫ
6
ser
be
Ϫ
lar,
fly,
-
lar.
fly!
© Alpha Film Music on behalf of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings,
translation and arrangement of "High as the Moon" by Jay Sand with permission
œ
™™
“La Luna”
Quisiera ser tan alto como la
luna, ¡Ay, Ay, Ay! Como la luna
Quisiera ser paloma y poder
volar, ¡Ay, Ay, Ay! y poder volar
(many countries, Spanish)