Check out this song here.
Chorus
Y si el sol hoy nos quita el sueño
Pues ojalá que soñemos despiertos
You may think of sueño as the word for dream. It does mean that, but it can also mean sleepiness, like in the phrase tener sueño, which means to be tired or sleepy. Quitar is generally thought of as removing something. Quitar el sueño literally translates as “remove the sleepiness” or to wake up. This is slightly different than to get up out of bed, which is levantarse.
So the first line means “if the sun wakes us up today.”
Ojalá comes from an Arabic word which means “god willing.” Today, it’s used to mean “hopefully.” It is always followed by the subjunctive.
Soñar despierto is a really fun phrase. It means to day dream, literally to dream while awake.
All together, this line means “if the sun wakes us up today, hopefully we’ll day dream.”
First Verse
Tan solos en la playa ya
Cuando éramos aquellos en la hoguera, tú y yo, y
Tan is used to add emphasis to an adjective, like the English word “so.” Saying tan solo is the difference between saying “alone” and “so alone.”
Ya normally means “already.” But in this context, it emphasizes that the action or state has been completed or is currently relevant. A more expanded translation might be: “So alone on the beach already” or “Now so alone on the beach.”
Aquellos means “those” or “those ones,” referring to a specific group of people in the past. We know that this is happening in the past because of the word éramos which is the imperfect first-person plural (we) form of ser. En la hoguera can mean at the stake (as in to burn someone at the stake) or at the bonfire. It’s technically ambiguous, but given that he’s talking about a beach, we can safely assume he is talking about a bonfire.
So the second part means “when we were those people at the bonfire.”
Pasamos de la raya ya
Con nuestros sueños de papel
Pasar de la raya is a colloquial expression that means to be out of line, to cross a line, or to overstep your boundaries. So the first line means “and now we’re crossing the line.”
Unlike the first line, sueño here means dreams, in particular sueños de papel or paper dreams. In English, a paper dream is a dream of grandeur or a vision of wealth.
The whole line means “And now we’re crossing the line with our paper dreams.” Basically, he is saying that the two of them are envisioning a life of grandeur, which is crossing the line, so to speak.
Por qué tendremos a complicar lo que está bien
En vez de disfrutar lo que nos queda por ver
This line is definitely one of those lines that shows the limitations of learning a language through music. Tendremos is the first-person plural (we) future form of tener. Typically, this would be followed with que to make the phrase tendremos que which would mean “we will have to.” In this case, it is followed by a which is not a standard construction.
Complicar is a cognate with English meaning to complicate. Lo que is used here to mean “what” as a non-specific pronoun.
So the first line likely translates as “Why do we have to complicate what is good.”
En vez de means “instead of.” Disfrutar means to enjoy.
The phrase nos queda por ver translates to “we have yet to see” or “it remains for us to see.” It is used to indicate that there is something remaining to be seen or experienced by us. It’s often used to express anticipation or the idea that something is still unknown or undetermined.
Quedar can mean to stay or to remain.
So all together, this line means “Why do we have to complicate what is good instead of enjoying what we have yet to see?”
Second Chorus
Porque hasta el último aliento gritamos al viento
Hasta means “until.” Aliento is breath. And gritar means to yell or to scream.
This line translates as “because until our last breath, we scream at the wind.” Screaming at the wind is something that often comes up in Spanish songs. It’s typically used as a sign of freedom.
El cielo tan lejos no está
This line means “heaven isn’t so far.” You may be wondering why tan lejos happens before no está. In Spanish, the typical word order for a sentence follows the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) structure, similar to English. However, Spanish allows more flexibility in word order for the purpose of emphasis, rhythm, or clarity.
El cielo no está tan lejos would be more commonly used in day to day life. But Spanish’s flexibility allows Alvaro Soler to say it like this for poetic or stylistic reasons, placing extra emphasis on “tan lejos” by putting it at the beginning.
Second Verse
Prefiero partir antes de compartir todo el día
The line translates to “I prefer to leave before sharing the whole day.” Prefiero means to prefer. Partir means to leave. Compartir means to share. It indicates a preference for leaving early rather than spending the entire day engaged in a shared activity or presence with others. The sentence highlights a choice based on personal preference or inclination.
You may be wondering how partir differs from irse. While both mean to depart, partir is more formal and often related to travel or significant departures, while irse is more commonly used in everyday language to simply mean “to leave.” In most casual conversations, irse is the preferred choice.
Olvidar toda la gente adicta a la dopamina
Olvidar means to forget. Adicta and dopamina are both cognates with their English counterparts and mean “addicted” and “dopamine” respectively.
This line translates as “Forget all the people who are addicted to dopamine.”
Porfa, doctora, falta la respiración
El boca a boca es ya del siglo anterior
Porfa is a very colloquial way to say por favor. You will hear it a lot if you travel to any Spanish speaking country. Falta is the third-person form of faltar, which means to lack. In this case, it’s la respiración or breathe.
The first part means “Please, doctor. I can’t breathe.”
Boca a boca means mouth-to-mouth, although it can also word-of-mouth. However, in this case, because we’re talking about a lack of breathing, it definitely refers to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
In day-to-day Spanish, you’ll most likely hear ya before the verb it modifies, but it doesn’t have to go there. In this case, it modifies es and is placed after the verb.
El siglo anterior is last century.
This line means “mouth-to-mouth is now from last century.” I actually had to look this up, but it turns out that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was invented in 1956.
Y tengo un corazón roto de likes que no llenan
This line means “I have a broken heart of ‘likes’ that don’t fill up.”
Llenan is the third-person plural present tense form of llenar, which means to fill up. You can use this word both literally and figuratively.
This line basically means that he gets a bunch of “likes” on social media but they don’t fulfill him.
Un buzón de +99 que ya no frenan
Similar to the line above, this line means “An inbox with more than 99 notifications that no longer slow down.”
Buzón is a mailbox or an inbox. We saw in No Te Metas a Mi Facebook that you can also use inbox here. Castilian (from Spain) Spanish tends to be a little bit less influenced by English than Latin American Spanish, so it’s likely a difference between the two.
Ya no means “no longer.”
Frenar means to slow down or to break. Typically, it’s used to describe vehicles, but it can also be used to describe non-human motion.
Third Chorus
Y ver como las nubes, las nubes se van
Las nubes are clouds. Se van is leave or go. So this line means “And see how the clouds leave” or “and see how the clouds go.”
Haciendo más pequeñas, pequeñas, mira
Haciendo más pequeñas means “becoming smaller.” And mira means “look,” which is often added in songs as a sort of filler word.
Porque contigo mi mundo es mejor
This line is pretty simple. It means “with you, my world is better.” Contigo means “with you” and mejor is better.