This week I chose the easiest Spanish song I could possibly choose, which also happens to be the only Spanish-language song I knew as a child.

When we were kids, we went on a lot of road trips. During one camping trip out East, my parents bought  “Solid Gold” tapes at the gas station. Each cassette featured top hits from the 50s and 60s, and we spent hours singing along to The Big Bopper and The Angels. This one was one of my favourites.

La Bamba – Ritchie Valens

To dance the Bamba to dance the bamba a little grace A little bit of grace for me, for you Oh, up and up Oh, up and up For you I will, for you I'll, for you I'll Need To dance the Bamba To dance the bamba You need a little grace a little grace for me, for you Ah, Ah higher and higher, higher and higher I'll be for you, I'll be for you, I'll be for you I'm not a sailor I I'm not a sailor I am captain, I am captain, I am captain Bamba, bamba Bamba, bamba Bamba, bamba, bam I'm not a sailor I'm not a sailor I'm a captain, I'm a captain, I'm a captain Bamba, bamba Bamba, bamba Bamba, bamba, bam to dance the bamba in order to dance the bamba a little grace a little bit of grace is necessary for me, for you Ay, up and up to dance the Bamba to dance the bamba you need a little grace a little grace for me, for you Ah, higher and higher and so on and so on

A few notes:

I meant to post this on Friday, but life got in the way. The truth is that this week I started feeling a bit tired. Irregular verbs were wearing me out, and Skype conversations – although fun – were taking almost more energy than I could muster. I needed something really easy to keep my motivation high.

Did singing La Bamba help improve my Spanish? No, probably not. But it was fun, which was what I needed. And besides, I’m still singing along to the more difficult songs that I learned in prior weeks.

Today, my energy’s renewed and I’m looking forward to tackling something more challenging for next week!

Want more Spanish music? You can follow a playlist that I update every Friday on .