La Llorona

I first heard of La Llorona while working at SF Beeswax Candle.

Lhasa De Sela sings a song, titled La Llorona on the album of the same name. Her voice is beautiful, haunting, and her songs just whisk you away to another time and place.

Since I have learned of the Legend of La Llorona or the Weeping Woman. The movie The Cry seems to be a spin off the story. The legend and historical facts are the only part I looked into here. It seems to be a more haunting perspective than I would like to imagine.



The beautiful La Llorona mourned them day and night. During this time, she would not eat and walked along the river in her white gown searching for her boys -- hoping they would come back to her. She cried endlessly as she roamed the riverbanks and her gown became soiled and torn. When she continued to refuse to eat, she grew thinner and appeared taller until she looked like a walking skeleton. Still a young woman, she finally died on the banks of the river.

Not long after her death, her restless spirit began to appear, walking the banks of the Santa Fe River when darkness fell. Her weeping and wailing became a curse of the night and people began to be afraid to go out after dark. She was said to have been seen drifting between the trees along the shoreline or floating on the current with her long white gown spread out upon the waters. On many a dark night people would see her walking along the riverbank and crying for her children. And so, they no longer spoke of her as Maria, but rather, La Llorona, the weeping woman. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for La Llorona might snatch them, throwing them to their deaths in the flowing waters.

from Legends of America


NPR - 'La Llorona': It's Mourning in Latin America
Joan Baez - La Llorona
La Llorona video montage - interesting mixing by video author of video clips and different both lyrical and instrumental versions of the song.

I decided to do some more research and share with you all, as my daughter has taken to singing about the house all day as she is playing. I imagine it is influenced much by my musical choices of late, but she seems to have this sort of a weeping tone, a dissonance. I love it! I love that she is singing around the house freel,y making her own songs.

It also reminds me of the Maori ritual singing as depicted in the movie Whale Rider.