The song āNaci en Alamoā (āI Was Born in Alamoā) is a soulful and stirring lament of Gypsies living in Europe today. Itās a song about displacement and homelessness and ultimately about nostalgia for a birthplace that was never home. There is no home, there is no homeland, there is no place of origin.
No tengo lugar (Ā I came from nowhere )
Y no tengo paisaje ( I have no landscapesĀ )
Yo menos tengo patria ( I have no homelandĀ )
Con mis dedos hago el fuego ( With my fingers, I can start a fireĀ )
Con mi corazon te canto ( With my heart, I sing to youĀ )
Las cuerdas de mi corazon lloran ( And my heartstrings throbĀ )
Naci en Alamo/el amor ( I was born in Alamo/I was born of passion, e.g. out of wedlock; this is sang purposefully to be vague enough to have the double meaningĀ )
Naci en Alamo/el amor ( I was born in Alamo/I was born of passionĀ )
No tengo lugar ( I have no placeĀ )
Y no tengo paisaje ( I have no landscapesĀ )
Yo menos tengo patria ( I have no homelandĀ )
Ay cuando canta(n), con tus dolores nuestras mujeres te hechizan (Ā When they sing, with your sorrow, our women enchant you )
Like the history of the Gypsies, the song itself has become an archaeological enigma. It has crossed so many borders and been sung in so many languages that it is no longer easy to determine its roots or which precise Alamo, in either Spain or Portugal, the song is about. Even now, Naci en Alamo roams a pathless Odyssey around the Mediterranean, no less homeless than a Gypsy. The word āGypsyā itself turns out to be a conundrum as well. Gypsies, who speak Romany, refer to themselves as Roma, not with the exonym Gypsy. (Roma is the plural for Rom, meaning āmanāāno relation to Romania.) āGypsyā in English, just like the word gyftos in Greek, may be derived from gipcya, with a possible derivation from egipcien, because Gypsies were mysteriously believed to come from Egyptāwhich also means from far away, from elsewhere, or just simply from goodness-knows-where. Etymological dictionaries also suggest that the word might derive from the Greek for untouchables, athinganoi, hence zingaro in Italian, tsigane and gitan in French, gitano in Spanish, Å£igan in Romanian, cigano in Portuguese. The real origin of the word, like the real origin of the people, is lost in time. There is no origin. (Source)
