ATTACKS - Sad songs fill airwaves

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Sad Songs About Attacks Fill Airwaves

October 15, 2001 08:28 AM ET

By Leticia Lozano

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Northern Mexico's popular ranchero ballads or "corridos," which traditionally chronicle current events or the derring-do of drug lords, have a new subject: the attacks on America and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

"By sea, sky and land/they're looking for you bin Laden/the CIA of the United States/because of the attacks," say the lyrics of "The bin Laden Corrido," one song in ranchero style with guitars and accordion.

Radio stations in northern Mexico are playing the bin Laden song often, along with tragic chronicles such as: "Tragedy in Manhattan," "Black 11th," and "Black September."

Soon after hijackers slammed commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Mexico's ranchero balladeers -- whose rhyming lyrics are generally plugged into formula corrido melodies -- were inspired by the drama and the U.S. hunt for the man behind the deadly attacks.

"As soon as I saw the news reports on television I started to write the story for a song," said Rigoberto Cardenas, composer of the bin Laden ballad.

In the past Cardenas, like other balladeers, has written "corridos" about legendary jail breaks by drug cartel leaders, crimes of passion in small towns and tales of feuds between families.

In the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, years of bloodshed by drug cartels have led authorities to prohibit the playing of corridos that they feel glorify drug traffickers as heroes -- the so-called narco-ballads.

But most of the corridos about the attacks are chronicles of suffering, rather than glory.

Jose Alejandro Vega, a 65-year-old farmer who writes songs for local ranchero groups, says he penned "Tragedy in Manhattan," because everyone in his town felt the horror of the attacks after so many of them had worked and lived in the United States.

A local duet put heartfelt drama into a recording of the sad melody and now it's being heard all along the border, including on Spanish-language stations in Texas and other states on the U.S. side.

-- Anonymous, October 15, 2001


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