01The Lead Track
Thirty-five seconds in, he offers to prove there's life on Mars. Not as a metaphor he's going to unpack. Just: let me spend tonight with you and I'll show you the sun you haven't seen, and also, sí hay vida en Marte (Mars), come here. It's the confidence of a man who has decided the universe is on his side and would like you to come along.
The whole song is him listing what he'd do if you let him. Sing to you in the morning so the coffee tastes better. Leave flowers on your windowsill. Burn the memories you'd rather not keep. It's the kind of song you put on when you want to believe someone means it.
02The Liner Notes
Álex Cuba was born Alexis Puentes in Artemisa, Cuba, and his first musical memory is playing claves on national television at age four, standing next to his father. He now lives in Smithers, British Columbia, population 6000, a snowy northern town he moved to in 2003 because it's where his wife grew up. He's been there twenty-three years and recorded an album in his living room.
Leonel García, the Mexican half of Sin Bandera, sits in on this one, and the two voices trade the déjame lines without either trying to win. The construction is the thing. Eight verses that all open the same way, and a rhythm that never raises its voice.
03Entre Líneas
Déjame con ansias consolarte
Let me comfort you, desperately.
Ansias is one of those words English keeps fumbling. Anxiety, yearning, craving, a physical ache to do something. Con ansias means he doesn't just want to comfort you, he's climbing the walls about it. Stick it on any verb and you get the same effect: con ansias turns wanting into needing.
Flores frescas para perfumar la fe
Fresh flowers to give your faith a scent.
Perfumar is a verb, and Spanish just lets you point it at abstract nouns. You can't really perfume faith in English without sounding like a poet trying too hard, but here it slides past without a wobble. Spanish is generous like that. Concrete verb, abstract object, nobody blinks.
Busco que tú sepas que en tu voz me inundo
I'm trying to get you to know that I drown in your voice.
Buscar (to look for) + subjunctive is the move here, and it's the one you'd never think to make. You'd reach for quiero que sepas. He's reaching for busco, which is closer to "I'm working on getting you to know." Wanting is passive. Buscar is a man actively hunting for a way. And sepas is saber (to know) in the subjunctive, doing what the subjunctive always does: you can't will another person's knowing into being.
La más dulce realidad, eres la manía
The sweetest reality, you're the compulsion.
Manía is a dictionary trap. It's not "mania." It's a quirk, an obsession, a habit you can't shake, and it's usually mildly annoying. Your friend who alphabetises her spice rack has a manía. So calling the person you love la manía is the whole game: he's naming her a compulsion, on purpose, as a compliment.
Que no quiero eliminar y nunca querría
That I don't want to get rid of, and never would.
The thing he won't eliminate is the manía from the line before, so he's refusing to cure himself of her. Two tenses in six words: quiero is "I want," plain present; querría is the conditional, "I would want," in some hypothetical world where he might. Present and every possible future, covered in one breath. Also note the trap: querría (conditional) versus quería (imperfect, "I used to want"). One R changes the whole thing, and yes, you have to roll that bad boy.
UNCLASSIFIEDS
Spanish For The Real World: There's a woman in Medellín who'll defend all 22 flavors at her pizza shop, and she means it. I recorded her. Also a coffee roaster who swears Colombians can't pick good coffee, and an engineer who grew up around dolphins. 48 unscripted conversations, synced transcripts, and a tap-any-word translator that keeps you in the flow.
It's the workout your Spanish has been missing.
Start Training Here →04Bonus Track
Side B is off the same record, and it's the same man in the opposite position. "Solo Mía" is a man who has decided the universe is on his side. "Esta Situación" is him across the room, forgetting how to work his own mouth because she looked at him.
I'll admit it: for the last few months, I open my music app and more often than not I press one of these two.
¡Dale play conmigo!
— Shay
