Pegaíto, pegaíto (into El trabalenguas)

Pegaíto is a Cubanized diminuitive of pega'o, which is a contraction of pegado, which means, literally, "stuck". In English if you have a crush on someone, you might say "I'm stuck on you". In Cuba, if a song or group is pega'o, it means it's stuck in the imagination of the public and incredibly popular. When La bola came out in 1996, it was lo más pega'o in Cuban music history -- #1 on the hit parade for an unprecedented 54 straight weeks. In fact, it could be said that El Médico himself was, for the moment, the most popular figure in the history of Cuba -- he was selling out 90,000 seat sports stadiums and no one could stop singing his songs. He had become, in fact, "like Van Van", and hence the coro:

allá tú, si te vas, si te caes
[hey you, if you go, if you fall]
yo como Van Van
[I'm like Van Van]
ahí, así
[paraphrasing the Van Van song "Qué tiene Van Van"]

On "De buena fe" the coro is repeated 3 times. Manolín sings the first guía, paraphrasing the Van Van song El baile del buey cansa'o. The next two are sung by the two great Van Van singers, Roberto and Mayito. When I first got this record, I didn't know any Spanish, nor did I know who these guys sitting in were, but the guías were so fantastic that I remember listening to just this passage over and over on my car stereo, with my finger on rewind like a chimpanzee with his finger on the opium button. [click here for De buena fe version]. If you listen carefully to the coro you'll also hear the unmistakable voice of Haila Mompié, who, along with Vannia Borges, was a guest artist on "De buena fe".

The live version of Pegaíto, pegaíto lacks the famous cameo appearances, but like the rest of the concert, the band plays with such fire that it makes the studio version sound quite tame in comparison. The concert ascends to yet another level of intensity with one of Manolín's most inspired coros:

Estoy pega'o hasta el techo
[English equivalent: I'm so freaking popular, even I can't believe it]
[literally: I'm stuck all the way up to the roof]
y no se sabe hasta cuando
[and nobody knows 'til when]
[audio example 32]