Tangelo Turns Bilingual with New Song Pinche Vato

I got the chance to catch up again with Tangelo after talking with him for the first time. This time we talked about his new song that he wrote in Spanish, Pinche Vato. I was interested in the meaning behind the song, and also his writing process as a non-native Spanish speaker, so enjoy the talk and his new song below.

 Cover Art by Dan Koyama 

What made you want to write a song in Spanish?

It kind of just came naturally. It’s something that is hard to explain, but there’s just certain songs that for whatever reason in their feeling I start singing in Spanish instead of English. It’s also not the first time I’ve written in Spanish. Pinche Vato is just the best one. I don’t know. Originally the lyrics weren’t politically orientated, and I wasn’t talking about gender politics. Before it was like a semi-romantic sad-romantic kind of lyric. At some point, I was running through some lines in my head, and it sort of came out really smoothly with the pinche vato thing. And yeah, I wrote the song in like 5 minutes. It just flowed and that was it. I never changed it.

Do songs typically come out that smoothly? Or is it one of those rare instances where it just comes out? 

It’s one of those rare instances, and I find that the best lyrics that I write are the ones I don’t think about too much. For example, in Best Friend the song on my EP, a lot of people say they like the lyrics to it. That one was like 5 minutes of vomiting the song out. Other songs which I thought about a lot more no one even noticed. No one pays any attention to those lyrics, and I like spent months writing them. Sometimes it’s better to underthink it and not to overanalyze it and to just let it flow.

What influenced the lyrics to Pinche Vato?

So, like the city that I live in is Guanajuato, Mexico. It has a big art school, a big art university, and I wrote the song in early 2020 at the time that the feminist movement in Mexico was getting really strong, and a lot of people were talking about things that guys were doing. There was a lot of stories coming out amongst my female friends of guys that they dated, or guys they hated, and they’d all be these “great artists”, who you know, had this really deep work of art that seems passionate and blah blah blah, but the guy is a fucking asshole and treats women like shit. Even to the point of—I mean, I didn’t make it so dark in the lyrics, but there was stories of abuse and emotional abuse. I was hearing all these stories while living with a female friend of mine who was politically active, and I was kind of pissed with all these guys. I guess that was the main thing. I realized that the archetype that I’m referring to in the lyric is like a very particular archetype which I think is real. It’s this type of guy that pretends to be really deep and artistic and emotionally connected. He understands art. He understands cinema and literature and philosophy, and all this stuff, but he is putting up a front to get laid. That’s pretty much what I’m getting at in the song, like don’t be fooled by these fuck boys. They are just fuck boys like anyone else. They’re the same as any idiot at a bar. They just have a cool haircut and are paid well.

Did you write the song in Spanish? Or did you initially write it in English and then translate it to Spanish?

Straight to Spanish. With all the songs that I’ve written in Spanish I don’t like to directly translate because it sounds kind of clunky.   

Does writing it straight to Spanish make it sound more natural?

To me it does, but I’ve been told it doesn’t. Somebody said to me that the song is really good and that the lyrics are really cool, and they said it like as a compliment, but they said it sounds like it’s not coming from a native speaker, but it still makes sense. There’s just a ton of phrases that no matter how much you study a language you’ll never get that native phrasing, but it grammatically makes sense. I checked with my friends, so at least the song isn’t full of errors. 

That’s interesting. Sometimes when I try to tell my mom something in Spanish I imply too much, and she gets on my case telling me to specify what exactly I’m talking about. It’s with little things like that I have to adjust when speaking in Spanish, because I imply a lot in English because typically a native English speaker can understand what I mean.

Does your mom speak English?

Nah, pure Spanish.

Is your first language Spanish?

Yeah, so growing up everyone that lived with me spoke only in Spanish, but you can tell that I didn’t learn Spanish formally if you listen to me long enough.

It’s funny. I was listening to people with a similar story to yours like Selena the famous Tejano singer.  She’s like that where her grammar is kind of wonky, but her pronunciation is really good.

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll phrase things super weird like that. But yeah, anyway, did you have any other names for Pinche Vato?

It was always Pinche Vato because I just love that phrase. It has many connotations, but pinche vato didn’t always mean fuck boy. To some people it still doesn’t mean fuck boy, but what I took it from is like a specific type of conversation that I’ve heard from my friends in Mexico where it’s like, “Deja los son pinche vato.” Like he’s a fucking idiot. Let that guy go. Don’t let him torture you anymore. At first, I thought it was funny having a song called Pinche Vato. I didn’t really think I’d release it because it was a bit too on the nose, but you know, here it is. 

How’s your process for writing songs in Spanish?

The first song I wrote in Spanish is actually a song that I’ll be releasing after Pinche Vato called Juego. I was kind of just joking with it. I thought it’d be ironic to write an edgy love song in Spanish for a Spanish speaker, and I ended up liking that song, so I recorded Juego as well. But there is more playfulness in my Spanish songs. I kind of take on this alter ego where it’s not as personal for some reason. Like when I write in English it has to be a really personal thing where I’m talking deeply about myself. In Spanish I let myself play a bit and just take on personas and take on archetypes. It’s actually a lot of fun. With all the songs that I’ve written in Spanish they’ve all been fluid and sort of subconscious in the way that they’ve come out. I think when I write an English song, I’m a bit overanalytical, and in Spanish I’m limited so if it fits in the melody, it makes sense and rhymes, then that’s pretty much good enough. In English I’ll twist and play with the words a lot. I’ll try all these things and I’ll try to give it all these layers of meanings and stuff.

Do you feel you have an alter ego when you speak in a different language? Like aside from the music.

It’s a good question and I think there’s two camps in this. There are some people who when I hear them speak in Spanish, they have a very particular demeanor which is different from when they’re speaking in English, and this goes for native English speakers and native Spanish speakers. But I think I am the same person. I’m like a half-Spanish speaker. My accent is kind of bad and I make translated English jokes. I’m not taking on this Latino personality or anything.

So, when’s the next song coming out?

Juego will come out a month or so after Pinche Vato, and Pinche Vato will be out on the 19th of October and the video for Pinche Vato will be out on the 26th of October, roughly. I split it up just so they both get attention.

How long do you see yourself writing Spanish songs?

I’m going for a 2 to 1 ratio, because I speak English twice as good as I speak Spanish, so that’s like the goal, but I hope to keep doing it. I have 2 other songs in Spanish in the works, but I probably won’t release them until a year or so because they’re not finished. I want to keep writing though. It’s fun and I really like bilingual bands that have songs in two languages or more. It’s really cool, so yeah, I’m going to try to be at least half a bilingual band.

Is it pretty good language practice to write songs in Spanish?

I guess so. I guess so. It’s definitely an exercise for sure. You know because you’re a writer, but when you have a certain grasp of a language there are certain rules that you can break, and it’s fun to play with that in Spanish as well. If you listen to pop music in Spanish or any genre, it’s not necessarily perfect Spanish. What you realize is that the melody is more important. The words are kind of jammed in there and the melody fits. I think in the last Phoenix album which came out like ages ago, like half the songs are in Italian and he doesn’t speak very good Italian either. His whole thing is he takes the French syntax, and he applies that to English or Italian and it has this different feeling to it. I don’t really understand what his lyrics are about, but I like the songs. I like that idea that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to sound good, and you feel something.  

Do you see yourself writing songs in a language other than English or Spanish?

I started learning Portuguese kind of recently and tried to write some stuff in Portuguese, but it was just too much Google translate. (Laughs). It wasn’t good. It wasn’t good. I got a little while to go. It needs a couple years work. 

Well, just to keep this short and sweet, that’s all I got. I really appreciate you doing this.

I really appreciate you as well.

Pinche Vato’s music video comes out October 26!

Check out Tangelo!

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3mNmWiiS12VqcKwPRl0C0w 

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/_tangelomusic/ 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/tangelomusic1 

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCpFKgI83EMj7M6JBY4Fj8w/videos 

EMAIL: tangelomanagement@gmail.com 

Interview by: Erick Carrada