Check out this song here.
First Verse
Agárrame con precaución
Agárrame is the imperative (command) form of agarrar, which means to grab or to take. This line means “grab me carefully.”
Que me ha explotado el corazón
Y saltan trozos por los aires
Why does this line start with que? In informal spoken Spanish, especially in colloquial or emotional contexts, que is commonly used to link clauses in this way to provide a reason or explanation. Think of it as a shortening of porque.
Explotado is the past-participle form of explotar, which means to explode. In Spanish, when you talk about an action happening to a body part, you use a personal pronoun instead of a possessive pronoun. So you wouldn’t say mi corazón ha explotado, you say me ha explotado corazón, which means “my heart has exploded.”
Saltan trozos por los aires means “pieces flying through the air.” Saltar means to jump and trozos means pieces or chunks. You can also swap out trozos for pedazos.
This line means “because my heart has exploded and sent pieces flying through the air.”
Voy a hacer una confesión
This line employs the simple future tense, which is constructed by combining a form of ir, in this case voy, and an infinitive verb to say someone is going to do something.
In this line, what is this person going to do? Hacer una confesión or make a confession. Altogether, this line is “I am going to make a confession.”
Estoy cansado de beber
Para volverme más sociable
Estoy cansado uses the first person form of estar, which means to be, and cansado, which means tired. If you use de after cansado, it is something that you are tired of doing. In this case, it’s beber, or drinking.
The first part of the line translates as “I am tired of drinking.”
Volver can mean to return or to do something again, but if it’s used with an adjective, it means “to make yourself.” In this case, it does use an adjective, sociable, which is a cognate with its English counterpart meaning sociable.
In all, this line translates as “I am tired of drinking to make myself more sociable.”
Voy preparando munición por si me piden mi versión
This line translates as “I am getting my arguments (or evidence) ready in case they ask for my version (of the story).”
Munición literally means “ammunition,” but in this context, it metaphorically refers to arguments, evidence, or information. Por si means “in case,” but is literally translated as “for if.” Me piden means “they ask me” or “someone asks me.”
You may notice that this line starts with “voy preparando” and not “estoy preparando.” This constuction uses the verb ir followed by a gerund (preparando) to indicate a gradual or progressive action. It emphasizes the ongoing process and implies that the action is being done little by little or over time. It can be translated as “I am gradually preparing” or “I am in the process of preparing.” Whereas if it had used estar followed by a gerund (preparando), it would indicate a continuous action happening right now.
Va a ser enormemente tenso
Like a previous line, this uses the simple future tense, which is constructed with ir and an infinitive to talk about something that is going to happen. In this case, the infinitive verb is ser. Enormemente and tenso are both cognates with English, so this line translates as “it’s going to be enormously tense.”
Debiste haber estado allí
This line translates to “you should have been there.” Debiste is the preterite second person form of deber, which means “should.” Haber estado is have been. Since deber is conjugated, it needs to be followed by an infinitive. It sounds a little weird to use the past perfect like this, but this is correct.
Fue esperpéntico y fue vil
Esperpéntico means “grotesque” or “bizarre,” often referring to something absurd or outlandishly ridiculous. This is not a word you’ll often hear in day-to-day life. Vil means “vile,” referring to something morally despicable or evil.
So this line translates to “It was grotesque and vile.”
Y estuve echándote de menos
Echarte de menos means “to miss you.” This uses a preterite form of estar to indicate that an action was ongoing while another action was happening. In this case, the speaker was missing the listener.
Chorus
Es un milagro
Es un instante
This line is pretty simple. Milagro is miracle and instante is instant. This line translates as “it’s a miracle. It’s an instant.”
Solo apenas te ha rozado
Ha regresado aquel olor a dopamina
Solo apenas can be translated as “only just” or “barely.” Apenas by itself means “barely.” Rozado is the past participle form of rozar, which means to brush up against something or graze something. So, te ha rozado is “it has grazed you.” Combine that with solo apenas to get “It has just barely grazed you.”
Ha regresado uses the past perfect form, which is really common to describe the past in Spain, to mean “it has returned.” Regresado is the past participle form of regresar.
Aquel means “that,” referring to something specific or known. Olor a dopamina translates to “smell of dopamine.”
Altogether, this line translates to “it has barely touched you / That smell of dopamine has returned.”
Tal vez nos mate, pero sabe a pura vida
Tal vez means “maybe” or “perhaps.” It is often followed by the subjunctive since it implies uncertainty. In this case, it is followed by the subjunctive form of matar, which means to kill.
So tal vez nos mate is “perhaps it will kill us.”
You may have learned saber as “to know,” which is totally correct. However, saber a something is to taste like something. Sabe a pura vida is “it tastes like pure life.”
So this line translates as “Perhaps it will kill us, but it tastes like pure life.”
Second Verse
Buscar un poco de valor y confundirlo con alcohol
Buscar means to look for something. In this line, they’re looking for un poco de valor or a little bit of courage. Confundir is a pretty close cognate to English. It means “to confuse.” Similar to how “confuse” can be followed by the word “with” in English, confundir is followed by con if you want to say you’ve mixed two things up. In this case, the singer has mixed up courage and alcohol. A tale as old as time.
This line translates to “Look for a little bit of courage and confuse it with alcohol.”
Cerrando en falso las heridas
En falso means “falsely.” Cerrando is the gerund form of “close.” And heridas is wounds.
This line means “The wounds are falsely closing.”
Las drogas cumplen su función, son paliativas, pero son
Cada vez menos efectivas
Complir means “to accomplish.” So, this line starts with “the drugs accomplish their function” or, maybe more naturally, “the drugs do their job.”
Paliativas is an adjective that has a cognate in English, palliative, which means something that relieves pain or suffering. I haven’t actually heard this word used outside of this song. I don’t even think I’ve heard this word in English.
Cada vez is “every time.” Menos efectivas is “less effective.”
Altogether, this line translates as “The drugs do their jobs. They’re palliative, but every time less effective.”
Si al final vamos a escapar
Al final is “at the end.” Like many of the previous lines, this one uses the simple future tense to say that something is going to happen. In this case, vamos a escapar means “we are going to escape.”
This line means “if at the end, we’re going to escape…”
It feeds directly into the next line.
Vamos a sitios a los que
Nadie haya bautizado antes
A lot of English speakers use lugar to mean place. The truth is that lugar tends to be very general. More often than not, you’ll hear sitio used to describe a more specific place.
An example of this is “do you know any good places to go out?” wouldn’t use lugares, it would use sitios. A general rule of thumb is that if you could replace it with the English word “spots,” then it’s probably sitio.
A los que is always followed by a phrase that includes a verb. In this line, it connects the noun sitios with the relative clause nadie haya bautizado antes. A los que can be translated as “to which” or “that” and is used to introduce a relative clause that gives more information about sitios.
So, the entire phrase a los que Nadie haya bautizado antes translates to “to which no one has given a name before” or “that no one has named before.” Formally, bautizar means to baptize. But colloquially, it means to give a name to someone or something.
Putting it all together, the sentence vamos a sitios a los que nadie haya bautizado antes means “We go to places to which no one has given a name before” or more smoothly in English, “We go to places that no one has named before.”
Tengo el cerebro en erupción de la novelas y del pop
Que oía en casa de mis padres
In this line*,* the structure is made up of several key components. The line begins with the verb tengo, which is the first-person singular present tense of tener, meaning “I have.” The phrase el cerebro en erupción follows as the direct object, where el cerebro means “the brain” and en erupción describes the brain as being in a state of eruption, figuratively suggesting that the speaker’s brain is overwhelmed or overstimulated.
The phrase de las novelas y del pop acts as a prepositional phrase explaining the cause of the brain’s eruption. The preposition de translates to “from” or “of,” and it links to las novelas, which means “the novels,” and del pop, a contraction of de and el, referring to “the pop music.” This indicates that the novels and pop music are the sources contributing to the brain’s overwhelmed state.
The sentence continues with a relative clause que oía en casa de mis padres, which provides additional information about the novels and pop music. The verb oía is in the imperfect tense, first-person singular form of oír, meaning “I used to listen to,” suggesting a habitual action in the past.
The phrase en casa de mis padres specifies translates to “at my parents’ house.” This relative clause explains that the novels and pop music in question are those the speaker used to listen to in their parents’ home.
Overall, the sentence translates to “My brain is overwhelmed by the novels and the pop music that I used to listen to at my parents’ house.”