BY BOB SCHULMAN
From the Sierra Morena,
Pretty darling, they come down
a pair of black eyes
Pretty little heaven, which are contraband
— One of many translations of Cielito Lindo
Chances are you’ve belted out your share of “Ay, ay, ay, ay” choruses in that timeless Mexican song about a lovely lady with dark eyes. Everyone knows Cielito Lindo, right – even if you’ve never been to Mexico. And even if you have no idea what “Sierra Morena” means in the first line. Or why the lady’s eyes are called “contraband.”
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Like most Latin golden oldies, Cielito Lindo (written in 1882) has several versions, and lots of meanings. A popular story has it that the song was inspired by 17th-century legends about a bandit-infested mountain range in southern Spain called the Sierra Morena. Quirino Mendoza y Cortes, the Mexican composer, is believed to have heard yarns about a cielito lindo (roughly meaning a “lovely sweet one”) who was rescued from the bandits and smuggled out of the hills. Hence the word, “contraband.”
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Besides dark, flashing eyes, the lady was said to have a lunar (a mole) near her mouth. The blemish got into the song this way: Ese lunar que tienes (“That mole you have”). The composer (apparently a mole man) goes on to say. “Don’t give it to anyone…it belongs to me.”
Bob Schulman is a Denver-based freelance travel writer and co-owner of a monthly travel magazine for baby boomers called WatchBoom.com. His stories, mostly focusing on Latin American destinations, have appeared in some two dozen major publications. In an earlier life, as Bob puts it, he was one of the founders of Frontier Airlines and served as the carrier’s vice president for PR until he retired a decade or so ago. A self-described “airline bum,” he earlier held PR posts with a number of other carriers serving the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.