Editor's Note: This music video by Al Primera, "La Soga (The Rope)" has interesting photos that illustrate the lyrics. Arturo Rosales, writer, political analyst and translator has done a great job translating the song for Axis of Logic. He preserved the cadence and rhyme of the lyrics in English as they are found with Primera's original poetry in Spanish, not an easy task for any translator. Arturo is multi-lingual having fluency in 5 languages. More music translated by him appears at the bottom of this page.

- Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic

Venezuela’s best known and most influential singer-songwriter, Alí Primera, was promoting and defending Bolivarianism back in the 1970’s and 80’s. He saw lessons in Venezuela’s history as exemplified by the Liberator Simón Bolívar, as an antidote to the transculturization and implantation of US values into Venezuelan society – especially the then dominant middle classes that had benefited from the 70’s oil boom.

The following song is symbolic of the people’s struggle to break the rope of domination of savage free market capitalism that had trapped the majority of Venezuelans in poverty for generations as the bourgeois representative democracy system ensured.

Alí Primera would have been 72 years old on October 31st 2013 if he had not been unlucky enough to have been killed in a suspicious automobile accident in February 1985 on a freeway in Caracas late at night.

On the occasion of his birthday Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Elías Jaua, made the following comment on his Twitter account:

“¡Vamos que, con Alí Primera y Chávez, se reventó la soga a favor del pueblo venezolano! ¡Venceremos!”, he wrote.

(Let’s go as with Alí Primera and Chávez the rope broke in favor of the Venezuelan people! We will be victorious!)

La Soga - Ali Primera

La Soga –Alí Primera	The Rope – Alí Primera
Jala! que la soga se revienta y al que te pegó sólo llévale la cuenta	Heave! on the rope till it breaks and if it beats you just count the marks it makes
Jala, jala, jala! que la soga se revienta Si estás en cuarto menguante mañana habrá luna nueva	Heave, heave, heave! on the rope till it breaks And if you're in a closed room there'll always be a new moon to partake
Jala, que ya pasa el tiempo malo y como en el dominó los mirones son de palo	Heave, now that the bad times are past It's like in dominoes the onlookers aren't part of the cast
Jala, jala, jala que la soga se revienta nuestra tierra sueltecita será novilla contenta	Heave, heave, heave on the rope till it breaks and then our little land will be like a happy calf that awakes
Jala, jala, jala que la soga se revienta ay, ay, ay, se revienta, se revienta, se revienta	Heave, heave, heave on the rope till it breaks ay, ay, ay, till it breaks, till it breaks, till it breaks, till it breaks
Jala! que el pueblo es cuero seco si lo pisan por un lado por el otro se levanta por algo tiene la piel florecida de esperanza	Heave! The people’s like dry leather Stepping on one side It’ll rise up on the other For something these hides are as hopeful as my brother
Jala, jala, jala que la soga se revienta ay, ay, ay, se revienta, se revienta, ay, ay, ay, ay, se revienta, se revienta	Heave, heave, heave on the rope till it breaks ay, ay, ay, till it breaks, till it breaks, ay, ay, ay ay, till it breaks til it breaks
El pueblo no tiene culpa si lo engañan una vez y dicen que el matacán muere mansito en verano cuando el agua se hace poca y queda el cerro pelado cuando el agua se hace poca y queda el cerro pelado Ay, ay, ay, pelado, ay, ay, ay pelado, ay, ay, ay, pelado	The people aren’t to blame if they’re cheated just one time they say the fawn dies tamely in summer when the rains fail and the hills are bone dry when the rains fail and the hills are bone dry Ay, ay, ay bone dry, ay, ay, ay, bone dry ay, ay, ay, bone dry
Si le quitan el veneno al cascabel aunque suene la maraca deja de ser cascabel	If you take the poison from a rattlesnake even though the rattle still sounds a rattler it does not make
Jala, jala, jala que la soga se revienta ay, ay, ay, se revienta, se revienta se revienta	Heave, heave, heave on the rope till it breaks ay, ay, ay, till it breaks, till it breaks till it breaks
Si le quitan el veneno al cascabel aunque suene la maraca deja de ser cascabel	If you take the poison from a rattlesnake even though the rattle still sounds a rattler it does not make
Jala, jala, jala! que la soga se revienta ay, ay, ay, se revienta, se revienta, ... se revienta	Heave, heave, heave! on the rope till it breaks ay, ay, ay, till it breaks, till it breaks, … till it breaks

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More Music Translated for Axis of Logic by Arturo Rosales