song premiere: "Muerde" - didi

photo: Hello Hillary

True to the song’s poignant dual-meaning, “Muerde” has evolving and important identities. A musical moment that bravely faces the current political climate surrounding migrants, didi forces you to consider someone else in just a matter of three minutes.

The track begins in Spanish with anguished vocals that beg you to listen. It then shifts, as a deep bass booms against ticking percussion; the band seemingly challenging the idea of indifference : “all I ever wanna hear is what you never wanna say.” The line seems almost a dare, a shot at listeners or whoever is listening to care, to take a stand.

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As singer/guitarist Kevin Bilapka-Arbelaez explained to TGE: “Muerde is tied to an idea I found fascinating from Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands. The way the book is structured is decidedly bilingual. To read the book with a Spanish to English dictionary would be exhausting, and clearly beside the point. Borderlands showed me that there can be works that aren't meant to be translated, because they aren't meant for every person. Some works are meant to be fully unlocked and understood only by those who already have an intimate relationship with the languages used within. I wanted to include a song that is mostly in Spanish on this album in order to honor this idea.

I've actually been rethinking the meaning of the lyrics for this one. Initially I thought it had to do with complacency. The way we fool ourselves into thinking that everything is fine, when really the house is burning down-- if not our own, then our neighbor's. It's about waking up, facing reality and doing something to the extent that you can about the awful things happening in your community. 

A lot has happened since I've written this song though, and the meaning is starting to morph into something else. Now, It's about ICE and the increasingly hostile climate in the US for immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, and how that can influence someone's ability to think positively about themselves and their future. It's about the near impossible task of rising above that to be successful in whatever way you can. I like when songs grow into themselves after we’ve been playing them for a while, and this song definitely feels more like an anthem now.”