Harmless Drinking Songs?

The festive song about a devil-may-care drunk was served up as comic relief during the recent concert by Mexican singer Pepe Aguilar at the Universal Amphitheatre. Even the title had a humorous ring: “De que te quejas, mujer?”

Which means: What are you complaining about, woman?

The lyrics are addressed to a spouse who’s just about had enough of her carousing lout of a husband. The song gives the man a chance to answer back, accompanied by the playful musical score of a mocking mariachi.

The singer asks his woman: Why so bitter and full of regret? Why, if she knew all along that he liked to drink and hang out with his buddies?

The male chorus comes to his defense, sounding suspiciously like a bunch of his compadres at the bar. If he buys liquor, the chorus says, it’s because he can afford it. That’s why money was invented--to be spent.

The crowd loved it. In the orchestra section, a man was on his feet facing center stage. He had a big smile and beer sloshing in his cup as he swayed to the jaunty rhythm.

You had the feeling that he was thinking: If only I could put my wife in her place like Pepe does.

We’re all familiar with the controversies about misogyny in rap music, satanic messages in heavy metal and, of course, sex and drugs in rock ‘n’ roll. But we rarely hear a cautionary word about the romanticized role of the macho boozer in Mexican music.

Sure, the down-on-his-luck drinker also pops up in country music in the U.S. But in Mexican rancheras , the music and the liquor go hand in hand. The despondent macho, alone in the corner of a cantina, always demands his tequila and his favorite mariachi tune, a sure-fire tear-jerker.

His laments are ingrained in the Mexican psyche, like those from the mariachi classic “Ella” by the late Jose Alfredo Jimenez: “Quise hallar el olvido al estilo Jalisco/Pero aquellos mariachis y aquel tequila me hicieron llorar.”

The lyric tells us that the spurned macho seeks to forget his pain Jalisco-style, referring to the state known for its mariachis and its tequila. But the dual remedy just makes him cry.

“There’s drinking songs everywhere, but in Mexican culture, drinking is associated a lot with the pain of losing love,” says Steven Loza, UCLA professor of ethnomusicology. “It illustrates a real problem in society, and that’s what Mexican music has always done. It has always been about real life, both good and bad.”

There’s no question that alcoholism is a big problem among men in the Mexican and Mexican American communities. And disproportionately so.

Studies have shown that Mexican Americans are nearly twice as likely to be arrested for drunk driving as whites or blacks. A new study in the August edition of the journal Alcoholism reports that Latinos have the highest rate of death in the U.S. from cirrhosis of the liver, based on data from death certificates since 1997.

Yet Mexican singers continue to glorify the macho drunk, whether brokenhearted or happy-go-lucky. In Aguilar’s bouncy number, adorned with ticklish accordion runs and skippy horn lines, the defiant borracho, or drunk, defends his behavior by noting that he earns the money to buy his booze.

That line is meant to silence the woman’s complaint, once and for all. But it sadly reflects research showing that Mexicans tend to be binge drinkers, often on paydays.

Fortunately, songs about drinking are rare in Aguilar’s otherwise classy, cosmopolitan repertoire. The worst offender is Lupillo Rivera, the popular L.A. singer who embraces the drinking lifestyle with particular gusto.

Rivera, who was raised in Long Beach and whose fans are mostly young immigrants like him, even acts drunk during his performances, including his recent debut at the Universal Amphitheatre, also sold out.

Rivera says parents, not performers, should guide children. But as cultural role models, these admired and even envied singers should be more concerned about appearing to endorse what is clearly a destructive cultural trend.

“I think it’s time for them to move on, really,” Loza says. “Why glorify it anymore? Even when you make fun of it, it almost makes it sound like it’s OK. Maybe people like Pepe Aguilar should think about that.”

Aguilar says he does think about it. And he’s not worried.

Mexican society has changed, says the famous son of ranchera legends Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre. The culture has thoroughly rejected the stereotype of the charro, the romantic rural cowboy, as a drinker, gambler and womanizer. Mexico’s young people are raised with a new awareness that has practically eradicated machismo, the singer says.

Aguilar sees that rowdy drinking song--written by Manuel Duran Duran and included in his 1999 album “Por Una Mujer Bonita”--not as an endorsement of bad behavior, but as a tribute to a Mexican musical tradition.

“The message I mean to send with this song is a musical one,” Aguilar said. “It’s a form of homage to that musical current represented by great figures of the traditional ranchera , such as Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Miguel Aceves Mejia and including my father.”

If fans are looking for a role model, he says, they should look to him as husband and father, not as celebrity. Aguilar says he considers his wife, Aneliz, a partner and a friend. He takes her on tour, along with their two young children, just as his parents toured with him as a child.

And he believes the audience takes the song for what it’s worth: a fun ditty that even women enjoy.

“We shouldn’t take this too seriously,” Aguilar says. “It’s just a simple song.”

Perhaps. But history shows that simple songs have the power to rouse the forces of civil rights, lead armies into battle and inspire individuals to acts of good or evil. Mexican singers should use this musical power to help their followers rise above their weaknesses, rather than give in to them.