One of the classic New Year’s songs for our part of the world is called ‘El Año Viejo’. If you have your radio tuned to any local stations during the holidays, there is a good possibility that you will hear it. The best-known version was done in the 1950s by the Mexican singer Tony Camargo. Backed by an insistent beat, a brass band, background singers, and the sound of fireworks, the song celebrates the new year in true campesino style.
The lyrics, repeated throughout the song, go:
Yo no olvido el año viejo
Porque me ha dejado cosas muy buenas
Me dejo una chiva, una burra negra
Una yegua blanca, y una buena suegra
Me dejo, me dejo, cosas buenas, cosas muy bonitas
Roughly translated to English, he sings:
I cannot forget the old year
Because it has left me very nice things
It left me a goat, a black donkey
A white mare, and a good mother-in-law
It left me, it left me, good things, very nice things
The story behind this belies the festive, happy nature of the song, which was originally composed and performed by an illiterate campesino farmer named Crescensio Salcedo. While on tour in Colombia in the early 1950s, Tony Camargo heard the song, and soon recorded his famous version in the recording studio of Colombian company Discos Fuentes. The song became an international hit and is still played to this day.
Crescensio Salcedo was also an artisan, and his specialty was the cane flute, an instrument that he not only played, but also taught himself to make. For most of his life his main source of income was the sale of these flutes. Salcedo could imitate other instruments such as the saxophone and trumpet with his cane flute, which likely helped him when it came time to make a sale. He had also composed other popular songs such as La Múcura, Mi cafetal, and El hombre Caimán.
But in a story familiar to anyone with knowledge of how record companies operated– not only in Colombia, but in the US as well– the composer was screwed out of his royalties while the record company rapaciously hoarded the profits. Salcedo later did form his own label, called Mi Patria, but he sold these recordings only to close friends and family.
Although he made little money from his famous compositions, he was unfazed. Not only did he not fight Discos Fuentes for royalties, he claimed he was not even interested. “I am not the author of anything,” he once said, “and since I am not, I do not take anything. I collect motives to express them in music. Others collect the money.”
Crescencio Salcedo died in the 1970s as he had lived, a poor humble campesino whose legend lives on through his best-known song, one that celebrates the simple gifts of the past year and looks forward to the turn of the calendar page.
