Dissect DJs - Ritchie Valens vs Los Lobos - "La Bamba"

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

Episode 136 throws it way back to 1958 when Ritchie Valens made this classic that still gets played today - "La Bamba", that then Los Lobos imitated in 1987.It's our second ever translation episode (first being Gangnam Style) where we try to decipher what this song is really all about, who did it better, and determine if it might have the best guitar breakdown in music history. LA BAMBA is NEXT!Watch the video podcast on YouTube at https://youtu.be/nkMqn8KXu2U Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

And DJ Castle Oh, what's going on, everybody And we are the Dysak Deges Deges Which means where the Dijs I like this minute mix it. Roll with back and Dicek

What's going on everybody? We're back into business Today we're throwing way back all the way to Yeah. 1958. Holy shit.

Is that old? Not only is it that old, but it was actually released on my fucking birthday. Not the actual birthday. That was far before I was born. But October 18th, 1958, how about that? A little nugget for on this day in history. Anytime it's my birthday. In case you want to find another reason to celebrate it, which some of you might,

because you might not give a shit that it's my birthday. But yeah, this is La Bamba. by, you know who does this? There's two different groups. We got Richie Valens. Yes. And Los Lobos. Okay.

So Richie Valence, I assume, is the original. Yeah. Los Lobos probably... It sounds very similar to each other. You're going to hear the two. Well, then fuck Los Lobos for basically doing the exact same song. It basically did the same song. And is that the version that a lot of people play nowadays?

Let's see. Does this sound like the last one we just did? Yeah, it sounds exactly the same. It does, right? Sounds like... Yeah, I feel like these fools just repeated. Exactly. And they probably did it

But like decades later. Yeah, I have no idea. Sounds like the same guy. Fuck those logos. What I'm noticing is the same person, same guys.

They're doing that pit bull thing that you always see. But they got this video of Richie, right? And they got this video of them. But this video looks way closer than

1958. Yeah, it's more modern. Yeah, so there's no way this is 1958. So that's why I'm like confused. It's got Lou Diamond Phillips in it

for some reason. So I, did they do a movie about La Bamba or something? Yeah, they did. Okay, that's what that is.

You did do it. and that's why you'll see the mixers. Is the movie called La Bamba? Yes. It probably should be, yeah. That makes sense? All right, I never saw it, but. You never saw La Bamba, dude?

That's a Latin staple in our households. I didn't wake up in a Puerto Rico. Yeah, you messed up, dude. What was happening? Did I say wake up and grow up, whatever. Oh, yeah, you get it. But yeah. I did do it.

So, classic song, high energy, a lot of fun, and it just gets gone, but I honestly, all my life had no idea what the hell they're talking about. What is La Bamba? And that was, let's not, lo capi san, Lord Capitin. I'm guessing he's talking about a captain.

I think that means Captain, yeah. I'm guessing he's talking about Bump, I don't even know what Bamba. I can't even tell you what Bamba. Well, Justin. That's what we're here to do today. Because we're the die sick, die sick, die sick, die sick, d'i.

And we're going to do our second ever translation episode. What was our first one? What was our first one? We did Sai Ghanem, Ghanem style. Way back in the day. I was like three years ago. I remember we were like, what did you just say? Yeah, and it turned out a lot of that song was about coffee for some reason.

Surprisingly, a lot more of that song is about coffee than you would have thought. That's what you discover when you do a translation episode. So I pulled up the lyrics here on both the regular and the translated version. So let's find out what the hell we're talking about with La Bama. Should I just get into it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bar-a-pal-la-la-bamba Okay, that seems like he's talking about

A dance of some kind And it means to dance the bamba So obviously the bamba is a dance of some sort I know the bamba And then he says You need a little grace, a little grace For me, for you, Come on and come on

Come on and come on For you, I'll be for you, I'll be for you The way that sounds in Spanish is of course You want to say it? Oh no, you don't have the lyrics? I'm ready. Se necessita Unta poca de Grecia

This is why I need him to say it You want him to say Wait go back a little bit Wait a minute Wait a minute He said something about money right there He said, I don't have no money

Yeah, I don't have no money He said I'm no sailor What? This is why I never Was able to get double languages And shit Because I heard I don't have no money

But apparently is... That's exactly what I heard. Did you not hear that shit? Yeah, I would have thought that too. But instead is I'm not a sailor. Like, fuck you, Spanish. What a weird thing to shout? My name is Hostino Antonio Garcia, okay?

I should know Spanish. You should. Whose fault is that? But I don't. He'll blame somebody else. I'm blaming this shit. I'm blaming Spanish itself. You're blaming Richie Val.

I'm blaming Spanish itself for this bullshit. You're telling me... Anyways. Yeah, so apparently, I'm so I don't I don't have any money No, Marinero apparently is a sailor

in Spanish You guys all know You guys thought it was that But then he follows it up with I'm no sailor I'm a captain That's why he says Soe Capitan

Ah see I knew there was a captain of some sort in there Let's hear that So he's not a sailor he's a captain. Yeah. Now let's dance. Bamba. All right.

Anybody got that right? That's exactly it. Bamba, bumma, bumma. Real quick, the video is of Ritchie Valance. That's not Ritchie Valance. It's a mixture of videos and Los Lobos, and then they have a carousel behind them. It looks like a true party. I'd be dancing my ass off at this party.

It looks like a carnival or something. Carnival, and I'm getting down, too. Bamba. Yeah, they're literally performing in front of both a ferris wheel And one of those like, what do you call it a carousel? Carousel, yeah, both of those. It is an empty carousel. They had a video to shoot there.

There's nobody on that fucking thing, man. There's nobody party and nobody on the thing. Nobody. There were no extra words there. It was literally just a mad guitar. It just felt like this was a good time to stop the song. Dude, went for it though. I gotta say, man.

Yeah, this gave it to the guitar thing. He was, for that little 30 second, he was strumming. He was like, he was strumming. He was like, do, do, do, do. Also, it's funny if you could actually see the video where the guy just has shades and he's doing, the only thing that's moving on this guy

is literally his fingers. He's one of those, you know how you see those guitar players sometimes where their whole thing is just like, I'm not moving. I'm not moving. I'm not moving. And then it's.

I'm a statue-esque guitar player. I'm just like, I'm going to let the singer cook. Statu-esque. Great word. And you know the singer is cooking, like the whole time. Like, because you can't have everybody in the band be that. Like, a lot of times you get that with bass players, but like this guy, the guitar is doing that, which makes it actually more fun because his fingers are doing so much, especially in a solo like that.

But, yeah, the singer, Los Lobo singer. See, I'm looking up Richie Valin's version. I almost like don't. I respect that they gave us a video, but I don't respect the fact that they took this exact song. and then I got this fat dude sitting here pretending like he's Richie Valens. That's why the video keeps cutting to fucking Lou Diamond Phillips

pretending he's Richie Valen because you need that to make the actual video work. You said his fingers were doing too much? Not too much. Just doing just the right amount. That's what Pam tells me I'm doing. Play the fucking song.

The song's kind of repetitive as shit. Here comes. Did you know that? Here comes. The most epic. This is a breakdown? Guitar Breakdown. Oh, beautiful.

Possibly in music history. I'm going to go ahead and call it out. Bold claim. I'm calling it out. It's one of the greatest. Let's get it going. Now it just fades. So I'm going to take back my comment as the greatest

because what they should have done in that situation was a, what's that one song we did recently? Where it fades? The old song where it fades. And then it comes back out of nowhere. Oh, the one from my, dirty dancing. Yeah.

That's what they needed to do right there. It faded, faded, faded, fade it, fade it, fade it. Why am I blanking on what song that was, man? Broke my heart. Because I couldn't dance. You didn't even want me around. But now I'm back to let you know. I could really shake up.

Episode 100 and... If I had to guess, I'd say 20. 120 120 it was the it was the one that the temptations were supposed to do

you said you were saying the whole song and you still couldn't get where it was supposed to go yeah me neither why the fuck is that I couldn't

well I'm like me at Castle we're talking recently and we were both looking at an episode on we were like I was like man we did this episode and Castle was like

we didn't do that episode I'm like Castle I'm looking at it right now dude and we did this episode it took him about 30 seconds it was Madonna's Papa Don't Prey Preach, yeah.

But I'll preach. We both forgot we did that. Go look at our, we have a deep catalog. Our catalogs getting there, guys. Over 130 episodes. We've broken down many of songs

that you always thought you knew, but you didn't know. Even if you think you know our episodes. Oh, the contours, do you love me? Contours, do you love me? We're at fades, fades, and then the producer

actually brought it down. We did research on this, and found out that the producer actually brought the sound down and then jammed it up right then. That's exactly what happened. But the answer is, yeah no that is definitely not the greatest

guitar solo of all time not because of what you're saying but because it's the Isley brothers and who's that lady who's that lady hit it play it 10 years I wasn't ready I feel like that's got a lot of con guys I said anyway let it play go guysies you're right that one's got a beat for sure fuck I feel like we did the wrong song today now I just want to listen to that we're going to put it on after we get done here

all right but here's a thing You just heard the intro, but there's actually, this is back in the day when, like, they used to really let solos cook. Because I think the reason is because they used to just have vinyl records and, like, the whole song would be like, it doesn't matter. Like, they weren't thinking about radio play. They were like, we got a vinyl to figure out. They were thinking about party play, and that was how you would let songs play eight to ten minutes because you would let the song play. And it was because they needed to, like, fill out a whole vinyl. So they literally just have, like, a handful of songs on there.

But, like, that song has a solo that cooks, man. That guitar, man, what's his fucking, I want to say, this Isley, one of the Isley's. I'll look it up literally right now because I think he's outed it. But the solo goes on for like, it feels like five minutes. It's probably like actually two and a half, but he just crushes it like consistently. You're telling me that has not close to this one?

Ernie Isley, I was right. Yeah. It's hard to even listen to this now after we just listen to that. All right. All right. Well. Yeah, this shit's bass. Even though you're hating on it because I, That lady was better.

Give me your slaps and snaps. Is that the whole song? What is that how it ends? We're done, man. The song's over. This song's quick as shit. All right, an easy one for you guys today. You know, sometimes let's just do like a basic,

just a knock one out real quick episode. That's what my lady tells me. And this one, it turns out, there's not a whole lot to say to it. I'm literally looking at the English lyrics and we already, we got through it all. We discussed everything. And then he just repeats it all. Slaps and snaps and get the fuck out of here. What we got?

By the way, we got a pot pie waiting for us We're about to grow That's right We actually need to get out This Costco Popeye Yeah shit is enormous Coming in hot Came in with his thing

He's holding it Literally looks like he got something From the bake sale The fair It's just Costco Popeye It's simple Whatever All right

Slaps and snaps That's it Two Wait you know what Los Lobos Brought down a little bit for me Oh The Los Lobos

Just stealing this exact Same You're giving so much shit to pit bull over the years for doing this. And they did it worse, honestly. They did the exact same fucking time. Verbatim. Verbalt, and they don't look as cool.

You know what? I almost kind of want to find footage of the actual Richie Valens. We do it right now. We can literally look at it on silent. I'll do it on silent. While you're doing that, I'm going to go. Three slaps and a snap. A lot of fun.

Brings back family memories. Good for parties. Short, sweet to the point. Um, just a classic, man. It's one of those things that you, it makes you feel like you know Spanish. You know you don't, but everybody sings it like they do. I have no idea that it said pala la la baba. I just said, I didn't even know Spanish, to be honest with you.

I thought it was just slurring words together on my life. That's all I've been doing. I know you've been doing the same. But what we got? Look at Richie. I, so we got this video with pictures. You know what? Because it's from 1958, there's a good chance that there's,

like almost no footage it's actually possible that something didn't get up on it but here's what's crazy is look at this i searched it on youtube and like the first 20 results are all like lewd diamond phillots it's like he just took over his image like everybody everybody just thought oh that that that was him then that's that's what he looked like yeah yeah there's a there's a few in there but like most of what i'm seeing is honestly i thought that was richie on my life too too yeah he just kind of not a bad imitation of it but But yeah, no, I think Richie needs more flowers than

what I feel like Los Lopes have just taken all the shine for a minute and there's a problem. I have an issue with that considering just in the exact same song. Justice for Richie. La-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-a-wamba say that I'm gay. So I'm Capitan.

So-Captan. Next! How do you say next in Spanish? Next day. Because there's been wrong. Yes.