This video – from the 1941 Jorge Negrete film, ¡Ay Jalisco, No Te Rajes! is introduced as “THE GREATEST CANTINA SCENE EVER”. Great, sure, but no one gets shot and nary a chair is broken over anyone’s head, so “greatest” might be an overstatement. Still, there’s enough celebration of debauchery in this clip to make it a contender. (The fun starts at 1:21, and it gets into gear at 2:16.)
As a bonus, here’s Lucha Reyes, “The Mexican Piaf” giving a less polished, but powerful performance of “¡Ay Jalisco, No Te Rajes!”
“¡Ay Jalisco, No Te Rajes!” is one of those songs where even if you can’t speak a lick of Spanish, it’s not too difficult to catch the general drift of the song. The song’s title translates loosely to “Jalisco, Don’t Back Down” or “Jalisco, Don’t Give Up”. Basically, it’s a love song about the Mexican state Jalisco, and the prettiest girl in Jalisco is the city of Guadalajara. It goes on about how the mariachis in Jalisco can rock, the drunks get drunker and the girls are prettier, but it’s dangerous to mistreat them. Lucha Reyes’ rendition shares the chorus of the Jorge Negrete version, but she only sings the last verse of the song (the same one sung by the girls in the Jorge Negrete clip). I can make out “charro” (the regional term for “cowboy”) and something about wearing pistols on their belts, so they’re probably singing about how manly the men of Jalisco are.
If you’re ever in the presence of a Mariachi band, ask them to play “¡Ay Jalisco, No Te Rajes!”; chances are, they can play it. If it’s one of those big-ass 15-piece Mariachi bands, they’ll probably play it really good.
That was six minutes and thirty seconds of AWESOMENESS! The only thing that could have made that any better would have been an appearance by Alfonso Bedoya! Viva big-ass mariachi bands with kick-ass sombreros!
Yeah, an Alfonso Bedoya cameo would have brought that clip into the stratosphere. Someone could have asked, “Where are the dancing girls?” and Alfonso would respond, “Dancers? We don’t need no stinkin’ dancers!”
Alfonso Bedoya was in a 1941 film, Zorro of Jalisco, co-starring Lucha Reyes. I don’t if the Lucha Reyes clip is from that movie, though.