"Cadillac Rosa" or "I Hope We'll Never Be Alone Again"

I am a reverse snob about most things, and music is no exception. Anything overproduced is anathema, and things that smack of consumerism, like covers of popular songs, are only acceptable if they’re done ironically-like Cap’n Jazz’s cover of ‘Take on Me’—not only is it ironic, but it ends in a series of animal-like screams that express the futility of trying to avoid pop culture and material society.


When I travel, I recognize that this snobbery is part of my cultural makeup—or subcultural makeup, as the case may be, and I try to be as open as possible. Still, imagine my horror when I realized, about a month into my stay in Mexico City, that I had been lured into a bar with a COVER BAND. Being a southern girl, I was far too polite to let the kind young man that did the luring know how absolutely taken aback I was. Much like the times I have been served nearly rotten meat in houses without refrigeration, my motto in these situations is “grin and bear it, and deal with the giardia tomorrow.” Knowing that a couple hours at the Liverpool Pub was unlikely to cause giardia, I decided to treat the situation as an ethnographic experience. I sat back (ok, not really, because I was on a stool), relaxed, drank a couple micheladas, ate an unprecedented number of olives, and listened to Spanish language versions of songs I hadn’t ever liked the originals of—like ‘I think we’re alone now’—not ironic at all, since my companion and I made up the bulk of the audience that night.

Thanks to youtube, you too can experience Cadillac Rosa at the Liverpool Pub on Insurgentes Sur…


I find that Mexico is full of bizarre renditions of familiar music. On the subway, for the equivalent of 80 cents, you can buy CDs of “jazz”—including jazzy versions of Madonna’s “Material Girl”, and “rock from the golden years”—with Spanish language versions of songs like “Long Tall Sally”.

I often find these bizarre renditions where I least expect them. The other day, I walked into the infirmary at my university. I didn’t find the Gregorian chants the nurse had playing surprising at all—I go to a Catholic university started by Opus Dei, so Gregorian chants, rosaries, shrines, and Latin masses are part of every day life. But after sticking a thermometer in my armpit, the nurse cranked up the volume, and exclaimed, “Listen! Listen! Don’t you love it?” as if something really special was happening. I must have looked extraordinarily dense, because she lowered the volume again, and told me, “It’s the Bee-tlays—but done in Gregorian chant style.” Usually I have no trouble deciphering English words pronounced with a Spanish accent, but that day I was feeling confused and congested, and I still didn’t understand. Luckily, the university administrator who had dragged me to the infirmary in the first place came to my rescue. “Ooooh, I love the Beatles. Where do you find these things, Lupita?” It turns out Gregorian chant versions of the most popular Beatles songs are sold by a vendor outside the VIPS (a chain restaurant, kind of like a Mexican Denny’s) at Insurgentes and the Eje 7. I politely commented on the originality of the concept, and the nurse told me I wasn’t dying of swine flu. An all around fulfilling interaction.



I don't think these guys are real monks.