Video: Ode to Lydia Mendoza
August 27, 2010 No CommentsThe year is 1916. The Battle of Verdun begins in France (WW1), Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control, and the light switch is invented by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg. I just wanted to give you some random context, because this is the world Lydia Mendoza was born into. Her mother and her grandmother taught her to sing and play stringed instruments, though in the early 1900s it was almost exclusively men who played outside the home. Lydia Mendoza changed that in her well-celebrated life of music. She lived to be 91. She is best known for her song “Malhombre” – which translates to cold-hearted man. One line in the song declares, “your soul is so vile is has no name,” which, well, seems harsh even now.
You can listen to an NPR Morning Edition audio story or get the basic facts on Wikipedia.
Below is our own curated video homage.
I like this one of her making tamales interwoven with biographical content:
And not to belittle the music with notes about fashion, but her costumery and the couch she’s sitting on is this video are an unintentionally modern pattern collision.
