Songs Dedicated To Pigeons
Although in real life they are not so much worshiped, the columbids enjoy great prestige when it comes to inspiring artistic creations. In addition to being an unmistakable symbol of peace, the dove is related to love and lack of love. Today in “Meus Animals” we are going to talk about some songs dedicated to pigeons.
Selection of songs dedicated to pigeons
Great poets and authors of popular themes, including singers and composers of greater or lesser recognition, were inspired by these birds when writing some of their most memorable works.
Our selection includes more or less popular songs but they are definitely worth paying attention to, and maybe listening to them again.
Would you like to join us on this musical flight?
– You got the paloma wrong
In 1969, a young and talented Catalan singer surprised us with lines that said:
“The pigeon was mistaken, he was mistaken. / Instead of going north, he went south, / believed that wheat was water. / (…) He thought that the sea was the sky / that night was morning. / May the stars dew, that heat, snow”.
However, Serrat is not the author of this beautiful song included on his La Paloma album .
The verses belong, nothing more and nothing less, to the great Andalusian poet Rafael Alberti. And the music is by Argentine Carlos Guastavino.
– Paloma Blanca
The Dutch musician George Baker recorded, in 1975, this theme that, a year later, became a great success throughout Europe.
The song is written in English, except when the expression “paloma blanca” is repeated in Spanish throughout the text.
“I’m just a bird in the sky. Flying in the mountains. Nobody can take away my freedom”, say some of the verses, accompanied by a captivating melody. If you want to hear it again, or for the first time, here’s the link .
– Paloma and Laurel
Retumbo is an ancient and little diffused folkloric musical style of Argentine and mountainous origin.
Composer César Isella used this style to create the melody of the verses of the great poet Armando Tejada Gómez.
That’s how this beautiful song was born, and here we share some of its stanzas:
“A dove / arrived wounded to the valleys. / Colored chest / like embers in the air. (…) must fly, / must return / to the warm nest / sunset. / In the nest / I like to see / about the afternoon / pigeon and laurel”.
– El palomito
“On the peaks of the guayabo, very far from the dovecote, there was a dove / that wept without rest. / Currucu currucu, / the dove sang. / Currucu currucu, / would return to its nest”.
These are some of the verses of this song by the popular Mexican group Los Cadetes de Linares .
The band was formed in the 60s and is considered one of the most plagiarized in the history of regional Mexican music.
Its members were renewing themselves and many of their former members took the group’s name with them. However, it can be considered that, with the recent death of Lupe Tijerina, the last of the authentic Cadets is gone.
The song El palomite has nearly 23 million views on YouTube. A record!
– The Dove
Another song dedicated to pigeons is the one composed by British singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl, with his wife Peggy Seeger.
In the 1960s, the song was recorded by Pete Seeger (Peggy’s stepbrother) and also by American singer Judith Collins.
“The pigeon is a beautiful bird, it sings as it flies. He brings us good news and tells us no lies. / He drinks water from the spring to clear his voice / as he builds his nest and summer approaches”.
The theme, with an anti-war tone, was, without a doubt, a sign of the times.
