40 years on: Rubén Blades & Willie Colón — Siembra (1978)
A look back on this legendary salsa masterpiece
Dubbed the greatest salsa album of all times and selling over 3 million copies worldwide, Siembra was the second release to come from Willie Colón and Rubén Blades. These two multicultural musical legends have proven as succesful as the fruit of their joint work.
Both musicians are based in New York — Colón, the son of American-born parents of Puerto Rican descent and Blades, a Panamanian of Cuban and Colombian heritage who moved to the USA in the early 70s. Together they came up with a total of four collaborative duo albums becoming pioneers and representative ambassadors of salsa music along the way.
Track by track
All tracks but one (“Ojos”) were written and composed by Blades, whose sharp social commentary and accomplished vocals meet Colón’s impeccable arrangements on all six songs that make up the album.
The instant classic and masterpiece “Plástico” introduces the record which starts off with some very groovy funk. For the first 40 odd seconds this might have the listener believe their copy of Siembra has somehow been replaced with something by Kool & The Gang. How could this be?
Don’t worry, nobody’s been messing around with your record collection (you’re probably streaming the damn thing anyway!). Colón is simply incorporating elements of a genre born and developed in the USA into the traditionally Cuban rhythm and instrumentation of salsa music.
The funk soon breaks into an explosion of very spicy flavoured salsa. As for its lyrics, “Plástico” denounces the superficial and materialistic attitudes adopted by some Latinos during the 70s and 80s due to the influence of American capitalism. The first half of the song explores the shallow behaviour of a man and a woman who have bought into a lifestyle of consumerism and false appearances. This first half transitions into a call to all Latin Americans not to fall prey to this seemingly comfortable yet vapid way of life.
Colón and Blades tell us that the fakeness and artificiality of plastic must not eclipse the fight for a better future of hope, freedom and unity for all Latin Americans. This theme reappears three songs later on “María Lionza”, a goddess who sees over and protects all Latinos from her home atop a mountain in Venezuela.
“Ojos”, written by Johnny Ortiz, also finishes on a positive note about the future of the continent being in the hands of a younger generation ready to fight for their people. And “Siembra” is a song that, once again, urges to ignore the shiny plastic and encourages to sow the seeds of kindness and humility today in order to reap the fruits of a better world tomorrow.
Leaving social and political issues to one side, we have “Buscando guayaba” and “Dime”. The first is a track about the singer’s quest for the right woman. A special woman he can learn to love. Its delicious melody, tropical rhythm and finger-licking trombone solos are as sweet as the flesh of the guava fruit the song’s title and lyrics make reference to.
Perhaps as a counterpoint to “Buscando guayaba”, in “Dime” the singer talks of the pangs of love and his longing for the feeling of heartbreak to end. Maybe it wasn’t the right woman after all…
Last but not least, we have “Pedro Navaja”, which is in fact the third track on Siembra. Based on Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, it is probably the most popular and well-known song on the record and it recounts the tragic tale of a shrewd and calculating criminal by the name of Pedro Navaja (literally, Peter the Knife or Peter the Blade).
The story takes place in an impoverished neighbourhood of Manhattan, where Pedro, looking for his next victim, encounters a prostitute roaming the streets. As the criminal approaches her, plunging his knife into her chest, his morbid laughter turns to silence. The woman has shot her attacker. Fatally injured, both characters lay dead on the street, yet not a soul weeps their loss. Only a singing drunk passes by making off with their belongings.
The final verses of the song explicitly reveal its message: “Quien a hierro mata a hierro termina” (“all who draw the sword will die by the sword”). This last track ends with the very sarcastic line “I like to live in America”, a reference to West Side Story, a musical in which the United States is portrayed as the land of opportunity. Blades is telling Latin Americans to stop idealising the United States and suggesting they hold their own nations in higher esteem.
With this level of deepness in meaning regarding a lot of the lyrics on Siembra, it’s not difficult to see why some critics have attempted to coin it “salsa intelectual”, although the term may seem a tad elitist or pedantic. Whatever your thoughts on this, what we can all agree on is that this album was not only critical in the development and history of salsa music — it is also one of the finest creations made in the name of the genre.
