Sarah Brightman - Hijo de la luna

Tonto el que no entienda.

Cuenta una leyenda
Que una hembra gitana
Conjuró a la luna
Hasta el amanecer.
Llorando pedía
Al llegar el día
Desposar un calé.

"Tendrás a tu hombre,
Piel morena,"
Desde el cielo
Habló la luna llena.
"Pero a cambio quiero
El hijo primero
Que le engendres a él.
Que quien su hijo inmola
Para no estar sola
Poco le iba a querer."

Estribillo:
Luna quieres ser madre
Y no encuentras querer
Que te haga mujer.
Dime, luna de plata,
Qué pretendes hacer
Con un niño de piel.
A-ha-ha, a-ha-ha,
Hijo de la luna.

De padre canela
Nació un niño
Blanco como el lomo
De un armiño,
Con los ojos grises
En vez de aceituna --
Niño albino de luna.
"¡Maldita su estampa!
Este hijo es de un payo
Y yo no me lo callo."

Estribillo

Gitano al creerse deshonrado,
Se fue a su mujer,
Cuchillo en mano.
"¿De quién es el hijo?
Me has engañado fijo."
Y de muerte la hirió.
Luego se hizo al monte
Con el niño en brazos
Y allí le abandonó.

Estribillo

Y en las noches
Que haya luna llena
Será porque el niño
Esté de buenas.
Y si el niño llora
Menguará la luna
Para hacerle una cuna.
Y si el niño llora
Menguará la luna
Para hacerle una cuna.

Music and lyrics: José Maria Cano

From: La Luna (2000)
and from: La Luna: non-European version (2000)
and from: Classics - European release (2006).

Source of the lyrics: the CD-booklet, with a correction or two for printing errors in the layout and some additional open lines. Thanks to Rafael Millán for some more corrections.

On this page:
 >   some notes on the lyrics and the original song
 >   translation into English
 

Some notes on the lyrics and the original version of the song

In the following, first line is not counted as a separate stanza.

First about the the last line of the fourth stanza, where the CD booklet has "Y yo no me lo cayo". The latter word -- if correct -- should have an accent: "cayó", from "caer" = "to fall down"; the word does not exist in Spanish without accent. Instead it seems that the line should read "Y yo no me lo callo" (which is pronounced the same in the Spanish of some countries), from "callar" = "to be silent, to shut up, to hush".
For this reasone I decided to use "callo" in the lyrics.
[With thanks to Valentin Albillo, Yael Mayevski, and Jaimillo]

Another point was that in "engañado", in the fifth stanza, the "d" was missing (according to Valentin without the "d" is exactly as any Spanish-speaking gipsy would pronounce it).

Accents are not printed on any of the letters in the CD-booklet; they have been added above thanks to the people that helped with the translation -- see below. And I added quotes and some more punctionation, similar to the translation. The word "Estribillo" (=Chorus in Spanish) is not printed in the booklet.

The song Hijo de la luna is originally from the group Mecano, formed by J.M. Cano, his brother Nacho and Ana Torroja [thanks to René Ramos and Saul Pena for info], and it appears on their CD Entre el cielo y el suelo (1986). The song can be found on several web site, e.g.: Valentin Albillo added that the song was later "converted into a full 3-hour classic-style opera, which features this song (sung by a soprano and with full orchestration), as well as many bits taken from the music of this song interspersed here and there on the opera."
Tuomas Aivelo informed me that Mecano also performed the song in French, and then it is called Dis moi lune d'argent. And Carlos Mingorance write that there is also an Italian version, called Figlio della Luna.
 

Translation into English

The La Luna CD-booklet also gives a translation, which is written in not so very good English. That is why I have made a translation that sounds better to me, including punctuation to improve readability. Thanks to Lee Amizadai, Valentin Albillo, Paul Sánchez René Ramos and Aliki Aslanoglou, the translation was further improved. And the result of this is given below.
The CD-booklet of the non-European version of La Luna gives a better translation of the Spanish, which is somewhat different from the one given below. To my feeling, the translation given below is better than the one given in the non-European booklet (and not because I made it myself!), so I keep it here.
Son of the moon

Foolish is he who doesn't understand.

A legend tells of a gipsy woman
Who pleaded with the moon until dawn.
Weeping she begged
At the break of dawn
To marry a gipsy man.

"You'll have your man, tawny skin,"
Said the full moon from the sky.
"But in return I want the first child
That you have with him.
Because she who sacrifices her child
So that she is not alone,
Isn't likely to love it very much."

Chorus:
Moon, you want to be mother,
But you cannot find a love
Who makes you a woman.
Tell me, silver moon,
What you intend to do
With a child of flesh.
A-ha-ha, a-ha-ha,
Son of the moon.

From a cinnamon-skinned father
A son was born,
White as the back of an ermine,
With grey eyes instead of olive --
Moon's albino child.
"Damn his appearance!
This is not a gipsy man's son
And I will not put up with that."

Chorus

Believing to be dishonoured,
The gipsy went to his wife,
A knife in his hand.
"Whose son is this?
You've certainly fooled me!"
And he wounded her mortally.
Then he went to the woodlands
With the child in his arms
And left it behind there.

Chorus

And the nights the moon is full
It is because the child
Is in a good mood.
And if the child cries,
The moon wanes
To make it a cradle.
And if the child cries,
The moon wanes
To make it a cradle.

A remark on the 5th line of the 5th stanza:
Me has engañado fijo
which is translated above by
You've certainly fooled me!
Larry pointed put that "engañar does mean "to trick". But in particular in Spain "engañarle a uno" is slang for "cheating on someone". So when the gypsy man says "me has engana(d)o fijo", he is actually saying
You cheated on me, I notice
which makes perfect sense in the song. And I think this agrees with the translation as given above.

 
===> The original (European booklet) and the improved translation next to each other

 
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created: 30 April 2000
last modified: 1 May 2009