`Tex Mex Beatles' song inspired by Times story

The Krayolas, who when they first emerged on the U.S. music scene in San Antonio were known as the "Tex Mex Beatles", recently got in touch with our Mexico City office to let correspondent Ken Ellingwood know that one of his stories inspired a song on their latest album.

"Corrido Twelve Heads in a Bag" on the "Long Leaf Pine (No Smack Gum)" album was written by Hector Saldana because, according to Saldana's note, he was "so affected" by Ellingwood's Dec. 22 report, which chronicled the latest macabre discovery in the ongoing drug war in Mexico.

Saldana and his family are Mexican but have lived in the United States for generations. The band member explains more about what motivated him to write the song here in this NPR interview.

Ellingwood's gruesome report said:

"Twelve men were decapitated and dumped at separate sites in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, authorities said Sunday. 

"Mexican news outlets quoted Guerrero Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo as saying that eight of the men were identified as Mexican soldiers and another as a former state police commander. Earlier, Mexican media had said that the victims' close-cropped hair indicated they were soldiers."

Lyrics to the corrido by the Krayolas are in both English and Spanish and go as follows: 

Mataron a los soldados, nunca volveran,

Dejaron los cuerpos descabezados

Nunca sabran quienes son

Twelves heads in a bag left on the side of the road

Found in a country God no longer knows

Twelve heads in a bag, I swear I read it yesterday

Buried like the others on page 27A

Twelve heads in a bag, lost count to my dismay

Fifty-three hundred must have somehow got in the way

Some of them down on the pass in old Guerrero state

Where one man's back porch is another's graveyard fate

Twelve heads in a bag, screaming out, "What did they do?"

Wrapped up like garbage, be thankful it ain't you

Found a few in Chiapas, down n Juarez, too

Where the girls lost are faceless, and the killers wear no shoes

Twelve heads in a bag pending family notification

Short military haircuts, cartel retaliation

For every one you take, the note says, "Man, we'll take ten"

On the road into this city, the machete always win

Twelve heads in a bag, eight soldiers barely boys

Tortured and shot up, boys will be boys

The Mexican authorities were offended or so they say

At the sight of a cartoon that ran on Christmas day

 

You can listen to "Corrido Twelve Heads in a Bag" here:

 

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Audio track provided by Hector Saldana.

Comments

[Jessie Bell]

Is there any connection between the "Twelve Days of Christmas" and the fact that 12 heads were delivered in such a grisly way? Why 12? There has to be a significance to that number and the Christmas season. A sick joke? "Twelve Heads in a Bag" is just as sick -- but brilliant.

[Ben Tavera]

"Twelve Heads" is truly a post-modern corrido. The subject matter continues the 500 year tradition that started when Mexico still owned Texas and California. Musically it starts with a downhome accordion and then morphs into a Dylanesque telling of these grisly murders. I love it.

[Ben Tavera]

If you're into the history of the Southwest/Mexico this is the most amazing song. It truly is a post-modern corrido in that it tells a story. It starts with that downhome button accordion sound and then launches into an almost Dylan-esque account of the grisly murders -- what could be more modern and traditional at the same time?

[Romanita]

I heard Hector and David Saldana of The Krayolas sing a stripped-down, acoustic guitar version of "Twelve Heads in a Bag" on Dave Marsh's SIRIUS XM show at SXSW and on KENS-TV, and it's even more haunting that way. Hattie Carroll lives. The Krayolas and Dylan should hook up and tour.

[La Conquistadora]

"Corrido Twelve Heads in a Bag" was written on Christmas Day 2009. Songwriter Hector Saldana found his inspiration in a Los Angeles Times story republished in the San Antonio Express-News. The Krayolas recorded the song a few days later at Blue Cat Studios in San Antonio. The track -- produced by Joe Trevino -- features Michael Guerra on accordion and Max Baca on bajo sexto. Hector Saldana sings lead, but that's his brother David Saldana singing the waltz-time Spanish overture.