"El Baile de los que sobran" (lit: The dance of those left over) is the third track of the album Pateando piedras from the Chilean group Los Prisioneros. It is considered by many as the most important song in the band's history and one of the biggest classics of popular Chilean music. It was written and composed by Jorge González.
| "El baile de los que sobran" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Los Prisioneros | |
| from the album Pateando piedras | |
| Released | 1986 |
| Genre | New wave, Protest |
| Label | EMI |
| Songwriter(s) | Jorge González |
The song has two versions, the original in Pateando Piedras and a new version for the compilation album Grandes éxitos.
Song
The song is considered to be one of the biggest hits in popular Chilean music. It is about the social inequality that is caused by different educational opportunities.[1] "El baile de los que sobran" is meant to represent all young people from lower social classes that, once graduated from school, realize that their opportunities for a stable job or of higher education are completely limited. The main reason is linked to the fact that low-income schools have a series of weaknesses, both structural and operational, that prevent them from providing quality education in line with the challenges of the country, as compared to private institutions.
"El baile de los que sobran" seeks to identify with all those who graduated from school and find themselves unemployed or frustrated in the face of low expectations ("It's another night of walking, it's another end of the month without news"), and that all he can do is "kick stones," (Spanish: Pateando piedras) that is, do nothing.[2] The song was also inspired by the students of the Andrés Bello High School.
Composition
According to Jorge González, in an interview published in 2001 on the band's official website:
For me, it was a song like any other... Just like the song "Exijo ser un héroe", the phrase "Kicking stones" appeared, which was an expression we used with Miguel... I did "El Baile de los Que Sobran" with a tiny drum machine, lent to me by Miguel Conejeros from Pinochet Boys (today in Fiat 600). I would spend time in the rehearsal room with the drum machine and with the Casio keyboard that I had doing the basses. I wanted to do a song like the ones that Heaven 17 or Depeche Mode had made. In the version before mixing, I started with out with a drum machine, that we eventually removed to leave the guitar alone. And the Casio had an accordion-like sound that I tweaked a bit.[3]
At first, Jorge González said that the dog heard barking in the beginning of the song was his mother's pet, Néstor, but, in reality, it was a dog sound effect on a synthesizer.[1]
Originally the song was a synthpop theme with keyboards, consoles and electronic drums, in the style of "Muevan las industrias" from the same album. The acoustic guitar, which was played by Claudio Narea, which belonged to Tapia's older brother, was added at the last minute before recording to "give the song a nice touch," as were the barking dogs.
Music video
There are two versions of the music video. The first, in black and white, was made in 1986 by Daniel de la Vega. It contains archive images of the band during their tours, interspersed with images from the 1983 Star Wars arcade video game and scenes that illustrate the atmosphere that existed in the Chile of the dictatorship (police inspecting the audience). The video also shows a couple dancing in the street; the woman of which is Cecilia Aguayo, who would later become a keyboardist for Los Prisioneros.
The second version, filmed in 1991, begins with Jorge González playing the guitar in a room, and the rest of the video are images of live performances by the band.
Cultural references
Due to the song's immense popularity, the phrase "kicking stones" is used often during the discourse of educational inequalities in Chile.
"El Baile de los que sobran", along with other songs by Los Prisioneros, became a symbol of the fight against the repression of the military dictatorship. As the 1988 plebiscite approached, their music began to suffer from censorship, as it was gaining popularity among "No" supporters.[1]
The song also became one of the anthems of the protests held in Chile during 2019, being sung in marches and used in banners and graffiti.[4] Regarding the use of the song, Jorge González said that "it is very sad that it is still have to keep singing. That song was created under the same conditions in which it was sung: with a curfew and bullets."[3]
References
- ^ a b c "LOS PRISIONEROS 2 - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
- ^ "El baile de los que sobran - Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile". www.memoriachilena.gob.cl. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
- ^ a b Cooperativa.cl. "Jorge González y "El baile de los que sobran": Es triste que se siga cantando". Cooperativa.cl (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-10-26.
- ^ Garrido, Mónica (2020-10-18). "Canto universal: las canciones que sonaron fuerte en el estallido social chileno". La Tercera. Retrieved 2020-10-26.