LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Mexico is mourning the loss of one of its most beloved singers, Paquita la del Barrio. NPR's Eyder Peralta has this remembrance of an artist known for excoriating men as she sang about heartbreak.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAQUITA LA DEL BARRIO SONG, "RATA DE DOS PATAS")
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Paquita la del Barrio's most famous song is epic for its contempt. "A Rat With Two Legs" it's called, and in it, she calls her lover a snake, a spawn from hell and scum of the earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RATA DE DOS PATAS")
PAQUITA LA DEL BARRIO: (Singing in Spanish).
PERALTA: It's a litany of insults written in exquisite Spanish. You rat, I'm talking to you, she sings, because even a bottom-feeding maggot is better than you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RATA DE DOS PATAS")
LA DEL BARRIO: (Singing in Spanish).
PERALTA: Paquita was born Francisca Viveros Barradas - poor, the child of an affair - to a single mother who had bad luck with men. And Paquita couldn't escape the same fate. She dropped out of school in the sixth grade. At 17, she fell in love with a man in his 40s. She was pregnant by 18. And then she found out he was married. In an interview on Imagen TV, she said it caused terrible suffering.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LA DEL BARRIO: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "But what can you do," she said. "Your world closes, and with kids, it's so much worse."
Paquita remarried, but after three decades, she found out her husband was cheating. She left him, but just before his death, she forgave him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LA DEL BARRIO: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "Men are so stupid," she said, "you have to pity them." Her songs were just as direct, and they struck a nerve. She recorded more than 30 albums, which sold more than 30 million copies.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIERDEME EL RESPETO")
LA DEL BARRIO: (Singing in Spanish).
PERALTA: In "Pierdeme El Respeto" she sings, "Don't tell me you're a gentleman. Instead, lose respect for me and make me your most unseemly proposition."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIERDEME EL RESPETO")
LA DEL BARRIO: (Singing in Spanish).
PERALTA: Graciela Rock, who runs the feminist website La Cadera de Eva, says Paquita la del Barrio liberated Mexican women. For decades, they were told men are men, and women should suffer in silence. Paquita taught them...
GRACIELA ROCK: You can suffer in a different way. Like, you can suffer in a mean way and in a trashy way, and it's fine.
PERALTA: In her music, Paquita shamed a cheater for being bad at sex. She sang about getting revenge by cheating herself. But she also bared the deepest of pain.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAQUITA LA DEL BARRIO SONG, "Y SI TOMO QUE")
ROCK: She was not afraid to show us, like, the full complexity of those emotions.
PERALTA: "My friends ask me why I like to drink," she sang. "It's because this ungrateful life has only given me sorrow."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "Y SI TOMO QUE")
LA DEL BARRIO: (Singing in Spanish).
PERALTA: Paquita la del Barrio died at her home. She was 77 years old.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Mexico City.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "Y SI TOMO QUE")
LA DEL BARRIO: (Singing in Spanish). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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