A Quote by Ruben Isaac Albarran Ortega
Each one of us in Café Tacvba is a composer and we come to the group with songs written out, musically and lyrically. Occasionally, there's a collaboration between us. But each song is almost always written by one of us, and then we all figure out the arrangements. Up until now there hasn't been a moment where the composer explains the song and says, "I want to say this or that." It's always open for interpretation.
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Personally, the songs that I've written, when they arrive to the Café Tacvba group , they become something more. Some begin to take spiritual aspects, political aspects, aspects that I had not initially put into the song. I think that's something magical that happens in our creations.
I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.
That song "Futuro" was written by Quique Rangel, the bassist. I wouldn't know how to explain the song, but each would have to give their own interpretation. If the lyrics generate that message for you, then that's good.
Most people who ask me what's my favorite song, expect that it's 'Midnight Train' or 'Neither One of Us.' But actually, it's always kinda been 'The Need to Be' because of what it says. I love the way that song was written, I love the melody, I love everything about it.
I'm a composer, and therefore I know when I've written a good tune. When you've written a good song is when you know that the lyric is completely coalesced with the song.
Usually, one of us will bring a song to the group that they think we could arrange and perform well. If the group agrees, we arrange it. It doesn't always work out though. We've tried to arrange a few songs that just we ended up canning in the end.
I've always written songs from a sad place. I can't think of one good song that I have written in a happy place. I was saying I was kinda bummed because I've been sorta chasing the girl I've been in love with for years and years and we're finally together now, and I'm like super happy for months and months and months. And my girlfriend asks, "Why haven't you written a song for me?"And I don't know how to tell her "Because it's just too good."
All you gotta do is think of the song in your head. And it doesn't matter whether you can play it or not, you can get somebody to play it. With songs I've written, there's a song called "The Statue", which I can't play. There are songs that I've written that I've actually just hummed on - there's a song on one of the albums they have there on the Internet called "My Love Was True" and it's almost operatic. I can't play it. But I can sing it.
For 70 nights, right across America, I've been getting out there with two ex-lovers and we've been playing songs which are so specific about each of us, you just wouldn't know. We're friends now but we can't forget what happened between us.
There are so many songs out there in the world that - if I know we have to come up with a new cover, then I'll just sit in my room and sing song after song and figure out which one I can kind of sing the best.
My favorite thing is coming up with titles. The majority of the songs I've every written I've always thought of the title before I've written the song.
I always try to write the best song I can in the moment, and those songs are often going to end up on Death Cab for Cutie records. I don't set out to write a solo song or write a band song. I just write, and where that songs ends up is kind of TBD.
The musical emotion springs precisely from the fact that at each moment the composer withholds or adds more or less than the listener anticipates on the basis of a pattern that he thinks he can guess, but that he is incapable of wholly divining. If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void. When the composer withholds less, the opposite occurs: he forces us to perform gymnastic exercises more skillful than our own.
I'm not sure how each one of us sees ourselves in the band, but we're being part of this ritual of identity where people see Café Tacvba as something Mexican, as a representation of the Mexican. The songs, the music, the energy given in a concert. Sometimes I question that there's not much decision from our part, like there's something that leads us to this. Something beyond.
Even with Neptune City, I feel like if you strip down all the arrangements, I feel like each of my songs is always going to be, at its core, either a country song or a blues song.
If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.
