"La Cucaracha" (Spanish: "The Cockroach") is a traditional Spanish folk corrido that became popular in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.

Structure

The song consists of verse-and-refrain (strophe-antistrophe) pairs, with each half of each pair consisting of four lines featuring an ABCB rhyme scheme.

Refrain

The song's earliest lyrics, from which its name is derived, concern a cockroach that has lost one of its six legs and is struggling to walk with the remaining five. The cockroach's uneven, five-legged gait is imitated by the song's original 5/4 meter, formed by removing one upbeat (corresponding to the missing sixth leg) from the second half of a 6/4 measure:

Many later versions of the song, especially those whose lyrics do not mention the cockroach's missing leg(s), extend the last syllable of each line to fit the more familiar 6/4 meter.

Verses

The song's verses fit a traditional melody separate from that of the refrain but sharing the refrain's meter (either 5/4 or 6/4 as discussed above). In other respects, they are highly variable, usually providing satirical commentary on contemporary political or social problems or disputes.

La cucaracha is a moth in the Crambidae family. It was described by Bleszynski in 1966. It is found in Bolivia.

References

La Cucaracha (26 March 2001 – 9 February 2014) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and broodmare. Bred and owned by the Yorkshire businessman Guy Reed she was trained by Barry Hills at Lambourn. She was a specialist sprinter, who won both of her races as a juvenile but injury restricted her career to five races in two years until she emerged as a top class sprinter as a four-year-old. In 2005 she won four of her seven races including the Cammidge Trophy and Ballyogan Stakes before recording her biggest win in the Nunthorpe Stakes. La Cucaracha remained in training at five and recorded another major victory on her final racecourse appearance when she won the King George Stakes.

Background

La Cucaracha is a bay mare with a faint white star and a white coronet markings on her hind feet bred at Copgrove Hall in North Yorkshire by her owner Guy Reed, a former RAF engineer who had made his fortune in the frozen chicken business. She was sired by the sprinter Piccolo and thus was a male-line descendant of the Godolphin Arabian, unlike more than 95% of modern thoroughbreds, who trace their ancestry to the Darley Arabian. Piccolo's biggest win came in 1994 when he was awarded the Nunthorpe Stakes on the disqualification of Blue Siren. He went on to have some success as a sire of sprint horses including Temple of Boom (The Galaxy), Flying Blue (Chairman's Trophy), Tiddliwinks (Duke of York Stakes) and Winker Watson (July Stakes). La Cucaracha's dam Peggy Spencer won three minor races for Reed from sixteen attempts between 1994 and 1996. She was descendant of the broodmare Be Careful, the ancestor of several other major winners including Agnes World and Dubai Destination.