{"id":3279,"date":"2017-12-23T02:45:37","date_gmt":"2017-12-23T07:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=3279"},"modified":"2025-04-21T09:51:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T13:51:45","slug":"gritenme-piedras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/gritenme-piedras\/","title":{"rendered":"Gritenme Piedras del Campo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gritenme Piedras del Campo\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q_KaJjVvXWQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Hitching along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana, I planned to spend a couple of weeks in Texas, but I got hassled by the cops in Galveston and it was freezing in Corpus Christi, so I scampered down to Mexico. They wouldn&#8217;t let me across the border without a bus ticket to someplace, so I picked Ciudad Victoria and spent my first evening roaming the local cantinas as third man in a norte\u00f1o trio.<\/p>\n<p>I spent the winter of 1985-6 hitchhiking around Mexico, with a brief swing through Guatemala and Belize, and it was great. I had maybe a hundred dollars when I crossed the border and eked that out by playing for tips and food. Sometimes I did the strolling minstrel thing, including a very pleasant week matching songs with the mariachis and\u00a0norte\u00f1o trios at the <em>portales<\/em> in Veracruz; sometimes I played for tips in tourist restaurants; I got an actual club gig in Antigua, Guatemala, which led to a bizarre evening as guest of Sgt. Barry Sadler; and a lot of times I just traded songs for tacos from street vendors &#8212; a good deal for all concerned, since a gringo singing for <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-3280 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Flaco-Jimenez-LP.jpg?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Flaco-Jimenez-LP.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Flaco-Jimenez-LP.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>tacos tended to draw curious onlookers who also bought tacos.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d prepared for the trip by learning some Mexican ranchera songs, mostly from Flaco Jim\u00e9nez albums: &#8220;Ni el dinero ni nada,&#8221; &#8220;Tu nuevo cari\u00f1ito,&#8221; &#8220;Besos y copas&#8221; (though that one came from Chavela Ort\u00edz), and &#8220;Gritenme piedras del campo.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Like much of the classic tejano or norte\u00f1o repertoire, this was actually a movie mariachi standard, which was good because it meant I had some repertoire for the older generation in central and southern Mexico who thought of the border accordion style as low-class &#8212; fans of classic ranchera despised norte\u00f1o almost as much as Sinatra fans of the same generation despised rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll.<\/p>\n<p>I got my first taste of those older tastes one evening in Guanajuato. I was walking around with my guitar slung over my shoulder, and a kid started following me and eventually struck up a conversation. I played him a couple of songs, and he said I must come to dinner at his father&#8217;s office. Since he was only eleven years old, I doubted his father would second that motion and tried to politely decline, but he declared: &#8220;If you do not come, it will be an insult to my honor.&#8221; So what could I do?<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, his father was a coffin maker whose hobby was taxidermy, and his &#8220;office&#8221; was filled with wooden coffins, stacked on metal shelves up to the ceiling, and stuffed birds of prey. The boy introduced me and started cooking &#8212; his mother had died when he was small, and the two of them were the family. He was, as it happened, an astonishing cook &#8212; when he learned I liked chiles, he went to the freezer and pulled out bags with a dozen different varieties and explained what each contributed to a good sauce. Meanwhile, his father was horrified to learn that I liked norte\u00f1o and <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-3281 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Cuco-Sanchez.jpg?resize=280%2C294&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"294\" \/>proceeded to play me records of the &#8220;real&#8221; Mexican singers: Amalia Mendoza, Lola Beltran, the Trio Calaveras&#8230; I don&#8217;t remember who all he played, but one of the women sang this song and he was very pleased that I knew it.<\/p>\n<p>This was written by Cuco S\u00e1nchez, a fine singer, guitarist, sometime actor, and terrific composer. I never listened to him much, but there are plenty of clips from his movies on Youtube. This is among his most famous songs, a classic of ranchera heartache:<\/p>\n<p><em>Speak to me, mountains and valleys,<br \/>\nShout to me, stones of the countryside.<br \/>\nWhen have you seen in life,<br \/>\nTo love as I am loving,<br \/>\nTo cry as I am crying,<br \/>\nTo die as I am dying?<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In the end, I am in this world like the feather in the air<br \/>\nWithout direction I go through life,<br \/>\nWithout direction I go through life,<br \/>\nFor this, you are to blame&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hitching along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana, I planned to spend a couple of weeks in Texas, but I got hassled by the cops in Galveston and it was freezing in Corpus Christi, so I scampered down to Mexico. They wouldn&#8217;t let me across the border without a bus ticket to someplace, so I picked &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/gritenme-piedras\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Gritenme Piedras del Campo<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gritenme Piedras del Campo - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My fingerstyle guitar arrangement of a ranchera classic, with hat-tips to Flaco Jimenez, Cuco Sanchez, and a coffin-maker in Guanajuato.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/gritenme-piedras\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gritenme Piedras del Campo - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My fingerstyle guitar arrangement of a ranchera classic, with hat-tips to Flaco Jimenez, Cuco Sanchez, and a coffin-maker in Guanajuato.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/gritenme-piedras\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-23T07:45:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-21T13:51:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Flaco-Jimenez-LP.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/gritenme-piedras\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/gritenme-piedras\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Gritenme Piedras del Campo\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-23T07:45:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-21T13:51:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/gritenme-piedras\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":692,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/gritenme-piedras\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/Flaco-Jimenez-LP.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/gritenme-piedras\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/gritenme-piedras\\\/\",\"name\":\"Gritenme Piedras del Campo - 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Though most famous for his outlaw corridos, he was a brilliantly versatile chronicler of Mexican life, and composed insightful and poetic songs about cross-border migration, government corruption, and other\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Paulino-Vargas.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4736,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/contrabando-y-traicion\/","url_meta":{"origin":3279,"position":1},"title":"Contrabando y traicion (Los Tigres del Norte)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/t-RGZEh1RsE I first heard Los Tigres del Norte while hitchhiking around Mexico in 1986. I was sitting in a park in Oaxaca one evening, playing guitar and waiting for something to happen, and some young guys came over and requested \"Rock de la c\u00e1rcel\" (Jailhouse Rock), so I played that,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Emilio-Varela-vs-Camelia-La-Texana.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4704,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/west-texas-waltz\/","url_meta":{"origin":3279,"position":2},"title":"West Texas Waltz (Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, accordion)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This is kind of a ringer, since I haven't filmed a live video to go with it, but \"West Texas Waltz\" was the only song I ever performed on diatonic accordion, which kind of required a band, and for a moment I had the band... so I'm posting that version.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/West-Texas-Waltz-EW-cassette-release-scaled-e1660431211470.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5856,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/besos-y-copas\/","url_meta":{"origin":3279,"position":3},"title":"Besos y Copas (Victor Cordero)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I learned \"Besos y copas\" from the soundtrack album to Chulas Fronteras, Les Blank's documentary about norte\u00f1o music, which I'm pretty sure I owned before seeing the film. It was performed by Chavela Ortiz, a fine singer and accordion player, who fronted the San Jose, California, group\u00a0Brown Express and was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Chavela-Ortiz-e1752187362926.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3330,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wolfman-del-rio\/","url_meta":{"origin":3279,"position":4},"title":"Wolfman of Del Rio (Terry Allen\/Wolfman Jack)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"January 20, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Terry Allen's masterpiece of corrosive American dreaming, from his\u00a0Lubbock (On Everything) LP. I've written in a previous post about my discovery of Allen's work, but at first I thought of him as a quirky novelty writer and it took a couple of years before I immersed myself in that album.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Lubbock-on-everything-300x294.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3367,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/goodnight-loving-trail\/","url_meta":{"origin":3279,"position":5},"title":"Goodnight Loving Trail (Utah Phillips)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I started singing this regularly for a very small audience of one, and before getting to the song and its composer, a few words about that... In the mid 1980s Vera Singelyn was running a place in Antwerp that provided cheap rooms and dinners for street people and buskers, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/vera-et-al-1986-e1515451599962.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3279"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5712,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions\/5712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}