Babalu (Cuban song, Margarita Lecuona, 1933)

[morwen9]

I'm in the middle of rewriting my first draft of a novel I started some months ago, which is an alternate history story set in the near future about a fourteen-year-old boy in Cuba, which is a banana republic because the 1959 revolution effectively didn't happen. The song "Babalu," composed in 1933, and which I've grown interested in learning, is one of several songs referenced in the story.

"Babalu" is a song (not hymn) to the orisha Babalu Aye. This is probably a long shot, but given that a lot of CC singers sing in different languages and that some CC songs have religious themes, as well as that CC artists sing songs from lots of different regions, I'd like to hear a CC artist cover "Babalu." This song was also Desi Arnaz's signature song.

Here are the lyrics:

Babalu
Babalu
Babalu aye
Babalu aye

Ta empezando lo velorio
Que hacemo a Babalu
Dame diez y siete velas
Pa ponerle en cruz.

Dame un cabo tabaco Mayenye
Y un jarrito de aguardiente.
Dame un poca de dinero Mayenye
Pa que me de la suerte.

Yo quiero pedi
Que mi negra me quiera
Que tengo dinero
Y que no se muera
Av! Vo le quiero pedi a Babalu ‘na negra muy santa como tu que no tengo otro negro
Pa que no se fuera

Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!
Babalu a ye!

Babalu
Babalu
Babalu aye
Babalu aye

Babalu

Am I just weird?

[morwen9]

Translation (approximate)

The wake for Babalu has started
Give me seventeen candles
to put in the shape of a cross.

Give me a cigar, Mayenye,
and a glass of brandy.

Give me a little money, Mayenye,
To bring me luck.
I am asking with the money
That my black woman
may not die.

Ah, I want to ask a saint like you, Babalu, that my black woman
have no other black man but me.