Tag Archives: What does la bamba mean?

La la la la la bomb-a!

By Alice on May 8, 2015 | 13 Comments

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to La Bamba on the radio and, as usual, singing along even though I not only don’t really know what he’s singing about in English, I don’t understand for sure what Spanish words he is singing. And then I thought, hey, why don’t I try to translate this song despite not knowing what the heck I’m doing in either language? After years of Spanish and English, I could make so many teachers cry silently at once.

Come on, Vamanos. Everybody let’s go!

What are we doing? We don’t know! What are we doing? We don’t know!

Spanish version (Espanol, muchachos! Yo rock-o!)

La la la la la la bamba!

Necesito un poco de gracia

Una poca de gracia

A mi fatia

Arriba, arriba!

Arriba arriba por ti dicen

Por ti dicen

I think she missed a few steps

(next verse, I’m worse than the first!)

Yo no soy no dinero

Soy capitan

Soy capitan, soy capitan

La la bamba

La bamba

AliceisthebestatSpanishevah!

(repeat lines a few more times, no one will notice, they’re still singing “bamba bamba”)

Bamba bamba

And now to make you cringe even more, here comes my English translation!

English version – Yay yay yay dumb Anglos!

The the the the the bomb!

I need a little thanks

A little thanks

My favorite

Yay yay!

Yay yay for your talking

For your talking!

(He wanting thanks for making the bomb, or for defusing it? Yay yay!)

Arriba, arriba!

I don’t have any money

I am the captain

The the bomb!

The bomb!

Stop, por favor, Alice.

Bomb bomb!

(I’m guessing at this point the bomb blows up thus ending the song? Maybe if he wasn’t a broke captain, he could have stopped the bomb, which clearly was not defused.)

So what do you think? Are you thinking I might have goofed up some of the lines? Or rather accidentally gotten one or two right? Who knows? La la la la la bamba, amigos!

Lo siento, mi profesoras.