The Mexican Corrido

The Mexican corrido is in essence a lyrical genre, primarily narrative, which narrates with a simple and invariable musical phrase composed of four members those events that powerfully touched the sensibility of the masses; violent crimes, violent deaths, tales of bandits, catastrophes, railroad derailments, wars, battles, heroic deeds, humorous stories, simple love couplets, couplets of unrequited love, or of a satirical nature. As can be seen, it includes the epic vein of battles and heroic deeds that give origin to the heroic gesta. The corrido is generally regarded as “very Mexican.” It is primarily a literary genre, but can also be defined as a genre blending textual and musical elements. Mexican heroes, such as Pancho Villa, Benjamin Argumedo, Felipe Angeles Emiliano Zapata, and Francisco I. Madero, are apotheosized and their deeds immortalized. And famous battles, such as La Toma de Zacatecas and Los Combates de Celaya, are subject matter of a vast number of heroic gests. As for the corrido’s lyrical nature, it derives from the affective overtones found throughout the songs. The corrido also generally recounts a story in either the first or the third person; hence its narrative character. Mexicans apply a variety of descriptive terms to the corrido: romance, historia, narracion, ejemplo, tragedia, mananitas, recuerdos, versos, coplas. The corridista may insert any of these terms into the lyrics of the song to identify it, often at the beginning or end, though these terms may appear anywhere in the composition. Two basic types of corrido exist in Mexico, the romance corrido and the corrido mexicano; they cannot, however, be precisely distinguished from one another. Some confusion also surrounds the use of the term corrido and romance. Even in the colonial era they may have been used synonymously. Many books and articles deal with all aspects of the corrido. Others concentrate on the typically Mexican corrido.

The origin of the romance lies in the Spanish folklore, as is evidenced by the meter, melody, and range of subjects. The narrative technique and the topics of the romance are reminiscent of the northwestern European ballad, with the distinction that Spanish romances seldom have a refrain.