Bilbao, in original version
What does Bilbao sound like? A bragging. A euphoria. To pride… That’s what they say, at least the lyrics of the thousand and one songs that have the botxo and its people as protagonists. That if this monument is the pear, that if this street is unparalleled, that if this person is the milk… And so on ad infinitum. Or rather, how far does the look of the bilbainito and the bilbainita reach. Because that’s the way these ‘coplas’ are, that just as ennoble the metro and bless a red-and-white lion, that yearn for nightclubs and express an anecdote –or susedido– to sing, toast and drink, although the order of the latter is that of less.
Sometimes without instrumental accompaniment, others to the sound of guitars and accordion, the bilbainada is, in itself, a unique genre in its kind. Unique because it is inimitable and original, and because it is capable of crushing the throats of all ages when great hits of yesterday and today are played like ‘An Englishman came to Bilbao’, ‘From Santurce to Bilbao’ or that other one that says: ¡¡ Up the Erandio! / which is from Erandio / Aúpa el Kaiku! / which is from Sestao / The ovens of Barakaldo / that illuminate all of Bilbao.”
If that the bilbainadas do not understand borders either. They may not be as universal as the San Fermin stairway -January 1, February 2,…-, but these zero kilometer stanzas are the truest reflection of that Bilbao jatorra and bartender that fills the mouths of young people, adults and older during the day and at night. As Juan Carlos Pichel sang in ‘Recordando a mi cuadrilla’ (2017) “If in Mexico you sing with passion / Cielito Lindo, La Llorona and Adelita / I sing to my city with devotion / because for me it is always the most beautiful” . They are the soul of the party all year round, and even more so with Marijaia in front. His lyrics exude passion for having a good time, for forgetting sorrows and are a real call to partying and partying. “In the middle of August, come to Bilbao / Aste Nagusia, we will leave you with our amazement. / You will enjoy the holidays like an illuminant and when you leave you will believe that you have dreamed it. / You will be well received and you shouldn’t miss it / revelry and joy and our cordiality. / Pintxitos of hake, bonito and txakolí / come to Bilbao, you’ll be happy here”, Miguel Ángel Gómez Urtiaga celebrated in 2020 with the song La que ha liado Marijaia. And that without having stepped on the street…
That is the spirit of the bilbainadas that they pretend to spread joy to synsorgos, artaburus, koitados and native aparravados. And for this they have had –and still have– posh troubadours: Los Botxeros, Los Chimberos, Los Ruiseñores del Norte, Jai-Alai, Cinco Bilbainos, Los Txikis, Indarra… Those same ones and others who unwittingly have managed to fill seats with those melodies with a Bilbao accent. In addition, the bilbainadas have adapted to the transformation of the town to delight locals and strangers with a repertoire that invites them not to stay idle and that is enriched each season with new titles. This year’s songs, like everyone else, hammer with their rhythms and their lyrics in the little hearts of the fans of these songs with license to shuffle in the same composition the church of San Antón, Puppy and the txikitos. Even Obama and Donald Trump have snuck into these short pieces of music.
And all because the first, during an official act in November 2016, named the botxo without reading any speech and without anyone telling him. He did it just because, because a story came in his intervention, because he felt like it and because Bilbao and its titanium museum are in his retina. “If he knew us / he would make Bilbao too / And just to imagine / I imagine Donald Trump / singing a bilbainada / in the middle of Central Park / Or the Obamas dancing / with that grace they have / an arin-arin in Arriaga / our party enjoying”. This is how the composition that earned Maite Garmendia Talledo a second prize in 2017 says.
But that exceptional condition comes to Bilbao from before, as Antonio Gracia Izquierdo was able to read in 2010 in its streets: “The Botxo Kosmopolita / they said they were going to do: / well, let them just do Kosmo / because Polita already is”. Always flattering the town and its people, as the last winner (Bakarra Munduan) also proves when she sings: “38 auzoek / betetzen dute Bilbao hiria, / bakoitzak bere esentziaz / pizten du gure harana argiaz; / urteak pasa ta gazteenek / birsortzen dute hiriko giroa”.
Because even if it doesn’t seem like it, the bilbainadas are not so pretentious and sing with great devotion to the earthly (the Plaza del Gas, the Iturrigorri fountain, the crossing of the stove, the cod, the carolinas, the bilbobuses…) without losing sight, yes, of the divine attributes that the town openly boasts about: the cathedral of San Mamés and Amatxu de Begoña, although the order of the latter is the least important. Why? Because in Bilbao everything is stately and charming, majestic and precious. Unique. So much so that it has given its name to a tile, a color and even a bubbly and sparkling drink that boasts of being from Bilbao…
One night and one route
“It is always a good opportunity to act as a Bilbaoan / to act as a Bilbaoan, it is always a good occasion / enough humor, grace and salt shaker and being a bit of a bluff / that dreaming does not cost money / or telling the whole world / that our botxo It’s the best!”, summed up txetxu bilbao in Always the occasion is good (2010) the best of that botxera sensibility. years before, in 1993, he won the fifth edition of the Bilbainadas Contest with Hymn to the La Casilla festivities and clothes didn’t bother him when it came to claiming a night of Aste Nagusia loaded with these melodies, rhymed in zor-tziko, jota and habanera time… A few years later, in 1998, the illustrious Petiso proposed for the Bilbao festivals a route of bilbainadas, and bars of course.
This is how Txaro San Juan and Fernando Ibarra also acclaimed him in Patrimonio botxero (2013) to refer to the Bilbao dances: they are “a treasure”, “they are culture and tradition” “that in their notes they give us / the spirit and pride of Bilbao” . This year has been the 34th edition of the Bilbainadas Contest, which confirms that these compositions never go out of style. Not even the pandemic had the stripes to silence the festive scores of 2020 and 2021, even if Aste Nagusia could not be celebrated.
The indisputable proof of the temperament and sarcastic character of the Bilbao man and woman from Bilbao to enjoy life is that the award-winning piece last year was El kobis dienueve, composed by Guillermo Arteagoitia and Alberto Núñez. And at the 2020 appointment, one of the selected songs (Singing on the balconies by Guillermo Garmemdia) stated that “Who was going to tell me / Bilbao without football or bars. / Our only fun / is to sing on the balconies. […] Singing through the balconies / singing through the windows / so that they never shut up / our beautiful bilbainadas”.
But not everything is parodies, jokes and caricatures. The bilbainadas are something else. They are everything else. They glorify friendship, they are devoted to loyalty, addicted to true love, they invite illusion and promise acceptance and hospitality… . / They are Bilbao heritage / there is nothing as heavenly / as singing them together / in a gang and in friendship”, reads the lyrics of Las bilbainadas, preciado legacy (2019) composed by Miguel Ángel Gómez Urtiaga.
Because Bilbao is a city of values, not only because it has also been agreed that way by the City Council, but also because its people show it when they sing:
“When you come to Botxito / bring your big suitcase / because when you meet it you will never want to leave”, breathes the lyrics of Un uncle from Bilbao, by Carlos Terrón (2016). And there is more: “I arrived at the village, / I was impressed / so wonderfully / and I wanted to stay. / I surrendered to its charms, / I did not want to escape […] / If one day you had / the opportunity / to be in Bilbao / you would understand me”, describes Roberto Gutiérrez de Rozas Cadiñano in When I arrived in Bilbao (2016).
The psalms are also found in another piece by Juan Carlos Pichel (Bilbao is friendship): “His true treasure, / watchword of our city, / is that a friend of the Botxo / is that friend who will never fail”. Or “the bilbainadas that are heard from the heart / are sung by txikiteros / in taverns, txokos and bars / and with a red wine in hand / they drive away all their ills”, stamped Juan Carlos Guerrero Tudea in 2020 in ‘Esencia de txikitero ‘.
love for botxo
“Come and meet us, come and meet us / to eat pilpil cod, / come and meet us, come and meet us / already drink our good txakoli. / First eat well, / sing, sing, sing / jota and arin-arin / to finish. / Yes, yes, yes, Bilbao is a party / Yes, yes, yes, I’m not leaving here / because I love you”, Nicolás Saratxaga contributed in 2010 in Come to know Bizkaia. Or how about this: “Botxo, botxito dear / when I see you again / I will know what I have always known / I will know what love is”, composed by Verónica Domínguez Centeno (2013).
Although as a declaration of love for botxo, the bilbainada signed in 2012 by David Sainz and Jon López: “I want to return to Botxo / and in my memory resurrect / kisses from sirimiri / from that childhood in El Arenal / and when going up to Begoña, / dear amatxu, I will ask you / to throw my ashes here / and through the estuary they reach the sea / because I no longer care about dying / if heaven is in Bilbao”.