No Te Rajes – Rio Rancho, New Mexico
As the eldest of six, I had the wonderful blessing of having spent more time with our dad than my siblings did. Dad was the embodiment of the term “gentle man,” a patient mentor and nurturing exemplar of how to be a father and friend. During our many outings, dad always had the radio tuned to KDCE, “The Station That’s All Heart” out of Espanola. KDCE played the New Mexican and Mexican songs dad grew up with and loved. Among his favorites (frequently on KDCE’s repertoire) was Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes by Jorge Negrete. It became one of my favorites, too. The song title made absolutely no sense to me because the term “rajes” comes from the verb “rajarse” which means to “crack” or “split.” Dad explained that colloquially, “no te rajes” means “don’t back out” or “don’t chicken out.” He assured me the song was basically a love song to the Mexican state of Jalisco. He also told me it was the theme song to the 1941 Mexican movie of the same name, based on a novel by the same name. If you think I’m a wealth of information, you should have met my dad, one of the…