Sooner or later, "Cucurrucucu Paloma" finds its way to you, poets, and you swoon -- because you are among the last, the very last swooners.
Looking around the web for information on the songwriter, I came upon a credit for one Tomas Mendez. Its first recording ever was by Harry Belafonte on July 20, 1956.
This is almost exactly a year after Wallace Stevens dies, on August 2, 1955. So how do I explain --
But ki-ki-ri-ki
Brings no rou-cou,
No rou-cou-cou.
("Depression Before Spring")
or --
There is one dove, one bass, one fisherman.
Yet coo becomes rou-coo, rou-coo. How close
To the unstated theme each variation comes ...
("Thinking of a Relation Between the Images of Metaphors")
or this:
You Jim and you Margaret and you singer of La Paloma ...
("A Fish-Scale Sunrise")
I am guessing that some folk version existed before Harry Belafonte recorded it, and Wallace Stevens heard it somewhere and swooned. But what if there's a less likely explanation? I fancy there is an essence, an eidos of the lyric, whence "each variation comes."
Ange Mlinko was born in Philadelphia and earned her BA from St. John's College and MFA from Brown University…
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