Sunday theme time here on the Buzzyblog and since I have been on a Santana-related run these past couple days, let’s stay with another of his tunes and my favorite from him Samba Pa Ti (Samba for You.) As for how he came to write it, there was this in Wiki:
Carlos originally titled it “For Every Step, Freedom From Within” (click here.)
Subsequent to Carlos recording it as an instrumental, several versions were recorded with lyrics composed by Argentina songwriter Leonardo Schultz. Schultz wrote several songs for Jose Feliciano who recorded this lyrics’ version of Samba Pa Ti (click here.) Schultz’s lyrics follow.
I also found this rough translation of the tune (below) with an English translation dubbed in the video. I have included it because the video is very well done and captures what I think is the essence of the song. Back in the day when I listened to Abraxas thru various states of drug induced filters, I would always add my own lyrics to Samba Pa Ti. Sure enough my thoughts too were about a busted love affair similar to that described by Schutz above and in the following video.
However, bottom line for me is that I don’t see nor hear anything even remotely resembling Carlos’ drunken saxophone dude stumbling around a NY City sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon. That said, I did land on this video where Carlos does a nice job (@ 1:55 mark) explaining how he came to write Samba Pa Ti with a lyric in mind as he composed the melody for it (click here.) That lyric was “Through every step in life you find freedom from within.” Nice Sunday message don’t you think?
Here he is with his instrumental version of it: