Corrido

The corrido (Spanish pronunciation: [koˈriðo]) is a famous narrative metrical tale and poetry that forms a ballad. The songs often feature topics such as oppression, history, daily life for criminals, the vaquero lifestyle, and other socially relevant themes. Corridos were widely popular during the Mexican Revolution and in the Southwestern American frontier as it was also a part of the development of Tejano and New Mexico music, which later influenced Western music.

The corrido derives mainly from the romance and, in its most known form, consists of a salutation from the singer, a prologue to the story, the story itself, and a moral and farewell from the singer. In Mexico, it is still a popular genre today.

Outside Mexico, corridos are popular in Chilean national celebrations of Fiestas Patrias.

Corridos play an essential part in Mexican and Mexican American culture. The name comes from the Spanish word correr ("to run"). A typical corrido's formula is eight quatrains with four to six lines containing eight syllables. Corridos have a long history in Mexico, starting from the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 and throughout the Mexican Revolution. Until the arrival and success of electronic mass media (mid-20th century), the corrido served in Mexico as the leading informational and educational outlet, even with subversive purposes, due to an apparent linguistic and musical simplicity that lent itself to oral transmission. After the spread of radio and television, the genre evolved into a new stage and is still in maturation. Some scholars, however, consider the corrido dead or moribund in more recent times (see, e.g. Vicente T. Mendoza, El corrido mexicano, 1954). In more rural areas where Spanish and Mexican cultures have been preserved because of isolation, the romance has also taken on other forms related to the corrido. In New Mexico, for example, a story-song emerged during the colonial period known as an Indita, which loosely follows the format of a corrido, but is chanted rather than sung, similar to a Native American chant, hence the name Indita.

The earliest living specimens of corrido are adapted versions of Spanish romances or European tales, mainly about disgraced or idealized love or religious topics. These, which include (among others) "La Martina" (an adaptation of the romance "La Esposa Infiel") and "La Delgadina", show the same basic stylistic features of the later mainstream corridos (1/2 or 3/4 tempo and verso menor lyric composing, meaning verses of eight or less phonetic syllables, grouped in strophes of six or fewer verses).

Beginning with the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821) and culminating during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1921), the genre flourished and acquired its "epic" tones, along with the three-step narrative structure as described above.

Some corridos are love stories. These are not exclusively male; there are also corridos about women, such as La Venganza de Maria, Laurita Garza, El Corrido de Rosita Alvirez and La Adelita, or couples, such as La Fama de la Pareja sung by Los Tigres del Norte. Some even employ fictional stories invented by their composers.

Before the widespread use of radio, popular corridos were passed around as an oral tradition, often to spread the news of events (for example, La cárcel de Cananea) and famous heroes and humour to the population, many of whom were illiterate before the post-Revolution improvements to the educational system. The academic study of corridos written during the Revolution shows that they were used to communicate news throughout Mexico as a response to the propaganda being spread in the newspapers, which the corrupt government of Porfirio Díaz owned. Sheet music of popular corridos was sold or included in publications. Other corrido sheets were passed out free as a form of propaganda to eulogize leaders, armies, and political movements or, in some cases, to mock the opposition. The best-known Revolutionary corrido is "La Cucaracha", an old song rephrased to celebrate the exploits of Pancho Villa's army and poke fun at his nemesis Victoriano Huerta.