New Song: Steve Earle, Los Lobos Team Up For The Striking “Volver A Celaya”

I got a ping from my dear friend RK with a link to the song “Volver A Celaya” and the words “Have been listening to this lately…” His text couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. As I sit around the B&V labs waiting for new albums from Neil Young, Beck and Greta Van Fleet, I’ve been getting twitchy for more new music.

I know that sounds ridiculous as we’ve had a spectacular year in music this year. We’ve got new albums from everybody from erstwhile Beatles Ringo and Paul to new discs from Lucinda Williams and Jack White. Hell, the fabulous new Stones album Foreign Tongues is still in high rotation here.

And yet somehow lately I always seem to end up pacing back and forth in front of my local indie record shop, until I realize I’m standing in front of the front door screaming like Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi, “More, more, more.” Not exactly, but you get the picture… the Dark Side is strong with my addictive personality.

I even posted a recent poll to find out readers favorite TV music/soundtracks which was actually cool… but I needed some more new stuff… Enter RK with Steve Earle and Los Lobos.

For the first time in either of their storied histories alt-country/roots musician Steve Earle and legendary Chicano rock/roots rocker/Tex Mex band Los Lobos have teamed up on a song, “Volver A Celaya,” which translates to “Return to Celaya.” And I have to say, it’s not only timely as if if ripped from the headlines, but it’s a goddamn beautiful song.

I’ll admit right off the bat, I’ve never been a huge fan of either Steve Earle or Los Lobos. I’ve always nibbled around the periphery of those artists’ catalogs. Earle is probably best known for his earlier records like his debut Guitar Town (1986, we put the title track on our Playlist: 1986) and Copperhead Road (1988 which is on our Playlist: Songs About Outlaws).

I think my friend Doug owned Copperhead Road. I seem to remember hearing it when I was up in Chicago on one of my drunken rampages back in the 90s with he and RK. I was surprised to see that Earle is more popular in Canada or his record sales would seem to indicate that.

Los Lobos is a criminally overlooked band from East L.A. I remember hearing them in college when they released probably their best selling record, How Will The Wolf Survive (1984) and my roommate in college Drew bought that album. I thought that LP was amazing. I love their authentic “down near the border” sound.

Again, I can only claim familiarity with both these acts, but I absolutely love this collaboration. Earle wrote the tune while teaching at a songwriter’s convention. He apparently had got to know Los Lobos over the years out on the road and asked them to play with him on the song. Brilliant choices all around.

Earle recruiting Los Lobos to play on this beautifully written story song about an immigrant’s experience during these times when the corrupt thugs in the current regime are disappearing brown people to concentration camps was the perfect accompaniment for these lyrics. Who knew sous chefs, kitchen staff and nurses were “the worst of the worst.”

Like all great story songs, Earle takes us on a journey, in this case that of a young man from Celaya, Mexico. Rather than go to work in the maquiladoras – the assembly plants where workers assemble raw materials into finished products, which sounds dreary – our hero decides to come to America. He gets a job on a San Antonio carpentry crew and despite not having any experience he “caught on.”

The man goes on to be a productive member of the American labor force and becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has two kids, both of whom served in the Army in Afghanistan where one is lost. It’s a heartbreaking story. In the end he decides to leave America to return, “Volver,” to Celaya as America is a country he “barely recognizes anymore.” I hear you, man.

Here’s the song, and like RK I can’t stop listening to it:

The lilting accordion and strummed guitars just bored into my brain. Take the brilliant political statement out of the equation and you still have a wonderful rootsy song.

My only regret about this song is that I haven’t spent more time listening to Earle and Los Lobos over the years. I feel like there’s a world of roots music, blue grass and Americana out there that I haven’t done the due diligence of digging into. You know, songs about trains and drinking beer or riding horses and the American experience.

Turn this song up loud and mourn the dark turn this country has taken and hope for better days and accountability to come in November. If this story doesn’t help humanize the stories of all these wonderful folks who come here looking for a better life, then your heart has already turned to stone. Maybe this will soften that… I don’t know… but at least you’ll have discovered one kick ass song.

Cheers! Take care of each other out there. It’s a dark time but there is light at the end of the tunnel and I’m almost convinced it’s not an oncoming train…almost.