Corrido

The corrido is a narrative ballad, traditionally without refrain, which tells the story of an important event or person. It emerged as a popular vehicle of communication in the southwest of what is now the United States during the Texas independence movement of the 1830s. It survived until the present in its historic form but has expanded from its custom of being based on a true story. The form now includes dance corridos and fictionalized corridos, such as the controversial narcocorrido of the U.S.-Mexico border region. Other names for the corrido include tragedia (tragedy), homenaje (homage), or moraleja (moral tale), depending on the story being told; corridos to John F. Kennedy after his death were titled corridos, homenajes, and tragedias. The corrido is one of the best documented and analyzed forms of Chicana/o popular culture, literature, and history.

The word corrido originates from the Spanish verb correr, meaning to run or to flow. One theory of the song's origin is that it descends from the Spanish romance tradition and was brought to Mexico during Spain's 300-year colonial rule. Prior to World War II, the singer of the ballad, the corridista, presented information as a first-person witness to the event being narrated. The typical corrido had no chorus, thus its name, and its structure is a common four-line stanza, eight syllables per line. As the focus of the corrido was the story, the instrumentation was simple and [Page 587]repetitive so the singer could focus on the lengthy narrative, involving one or two singers and a guitar or accordion. Often the corridista presented key information about the event within the first two stanzas and incorporated dialogue into the song to reinforce the illusion he was there. When performed live, audiences used gritos, or yells, to show their approval. When recorded, corridos initially captured two sides of a 78 RPM record.

After World War II and the development of amplification, corridos also developed into fictional and dance varieties. These were shortened to one side of a 45 RPM record, occasionally included a refrain, and more women served as corridistas. They presented women's stories in a more positive light than had characterized the genre for the previous century.

One series of fictionalized corridos about La Camelia, a drug-running woman, featured morals that suggested that running drugs led to bad outcomes, but also simultaneously demonized women as the downfall of men. Esteban Jordan created La Camelia in 1975, and she was so popular a literary figure she was picked up by Ramon Ayala y los Bravos del Norte in their 1977 Con-trabando y Traicion. After several other songs about La Camelia in which she escaped at the end of the song so she could appear in another singer's corrido like a telenovela, two movies were made featuring this character.