Silencio (Rafael Hernández song)
Silencio (Spanish word meaning silence in English) is a song written by the Puerto Rican musician and composer Rafael Hernández (1892–1965) in the style of a bolero.
Recorded by various artists in the world of Hispanic music, it came to wider prominence when it was included in the Oscar-nominated soundtrack of the 1999 documentary film Buena Vista Social Club, set in Cuba and directed by Wim Wenders.[1] The vocalists were Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, and the musicians included the American guitarist Ry Cooder, who had played a large part in reuniting the original group and producing the music. The scene from the film in which the song is performed is particularly poignant and memorable because the age of the performers (he was 72 and she almost 70; the oldest bandmember was 91 and several were over 80 years old) is contrasted by the freshness and emotional intensity of the performance, in which she is moved to tears that he tenderly brushes away.
At the height of his career (the late 1950s until his death in 1964), the Puerto Rican pianist and bandleader Noro Morales released a series of recordings of rumba pieces arranged for his sextet, without vocals and with (an innovation) the piano playing both melody and rhythm. Several of his successes were composed by Hernández, among them Silencio.
The 1969 Mexican film "El jibarito Rafael", set in Puerto Rico, has a scene where a tuxedo-clad singer (Felipe Pirela) sings the song as he wanders around the nightclub where the protagonist couple are sitting, to end up facing the girl directly as he begins the phrase "Silencio ..." [2]
Lyrics
Silencio
Duermen en mi jardín
Las blancas azucenas[1]
Los nardos y las rosas
[Y][2] mi alma, muy triste y pesarosa
A las flores quiere ocultar,
Su amargo dolor.
No quiero que las flores sepan
Los tormentos que me da, la vida
Si supieran lo que estoy sufriendo
Por mis penas, llorarían, también.
Silencio, que están durmiendo
Los nardos y las azucenas
No quiero que sepan mis penas
Porque, si me ven llorando, morirán.
Porque, si me ven llorando, morirán.
Porque, si me ven llorando, morirán
Silence
Sleeping in my garden
The white lilies
The nards and the roses
[And] my soul, very sad and heavy,
Wants to hide from the flowers
Its bitter pain.
I don’t want the flowers to know
The torments life sends me
If they knew what I suffer
With my pains, they too would cry.
Silence; let them sleep,
The nards and the lilies
I don’t want them to know my sadness,
Because, if they see me crying, they’ll die.
Because, if they see me crying, they’ll die.
Because, if they see me crying, they’ll die.
All the flowers mentioned are heavily scented, and hence have a palpable and evocative presence, even at night, in the dark, when they are "sleeping". This attribute leads to the conceit that the flowers are as sensitive to human emotions as we are to their scents.