18: Pies Descalzos Sueños Blancos - Shakira

Oh my god, Shakira gets me.

Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind, We've Gotten Too Far,

a podcast where a Scotsman, an Irishman and a Bulgarian

discuss the worst, silliest and weirdest as fuck music videos.

Say hello everyone.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Hi, I'm Dave, I guess.

Maybe.

This is the second part of our Around the World Tour

and we have landed in the fantastic country of Colombia

where we will be looking at a pre-English version of a...

Oh, dead mother.

It's usually smoother than this.

Let's wait till I get to the pronunciation of the name.

I'm going to butcher it.

You're going to do what I did last week with a Russian name.

Where we will be looking at the pre-English language version of Shakira,

one that is not very well known to the Western public.

This is...

Yes, this is Carlos Swingers Blancos.

And here to help us denounce this 90 South American jam,

we have invited back our friend to the podcast, Anna.

Good to know.

Hi, Anna.

Hi guys.

Hi.

It's nice to see you again.

Hi Anna.

Sorry I was laughing because I think you said denounce instead of decode there.

Oh.

Yeah plus denounces.

Travesty.

Okay I'll say that one again.

No let's just leave it.

Well given this song is all about social criticism I do think it's fitting.

The song with English title Bare Feet White Dreams was released in 1996 and it was the

third single from Shakira's third album but her first major studio one.

She was 19 at the time and co-wrote and co-produced every single one of the 1911 songs.

Imagine 19 songs, Christ.

There is also a Portuguese version of the song called...

Pes descalços, sonhos brancos.

Thank you.

Which I presume does not mean bare feet or wide dreams.

Does it?

Yes, it does, actually.

It's the exact translation of it.

The whole album was massive when it came out.

So this was not the most popular song.

It's known to be a song with a very long title.

But personally to me, that's by far my favorite song.

And I just, I remember seeing the video clip on MTV when MTV would still play music.

And people thought it was really weird.

I always thought it was amazing.

This was not the most popular song from the album by far, but it was always a personal favorite.

It's quite catchy, the tune, but it's maybe a bit rough to be too pot.

So it did not become the biggest hit, but it is to me.

The whole idea of the song is that mankind, humanity has all been evolving.

And we started off in a very innocent place, if you look into the Bible,

until Eve bites into the apple and then we were cast aside.

So the whole song goes on to develop how everything is made up.

Like society is made up of rules that we made up for ourselves and people can't fit in them.

all the made-up rules that exist, that we as people insist that they are important and that

they're traditions and that you will be a failure in life if you do not follow them. And how will

your family see you and all of those things, those are all parts of the lyrics. So the start of it

means that we as humans, we started off with bare feet and white dreams, vulnerable and innocent and

not knowing what to think and then we created society and all these rules that are antiquated

and shit well so uh it's a shakira song that's a shakira song i can i can only vaguely remember

most of the the sort of poppier ones that she did in english but uh i don't think they were quite as

deep as that i don't talk about mountains and boops but we'll get to there as well yeah that's

So I know he sticks in my head.

Which one, sorry?

In whenever, wherever she sings how it's good that her boobs are not of breath, whatever she

says, not as big as mountains, because the guy she's singing to would have confused her

for mountains or something like that.

I don't know.

It's really fucking dumb.

Well, there you go.

It's not a lie, though, is it?

No.

It's not a lie.

Like her hips, you know, because Shakira's hips, they just don't lie.

It's true.

They do not lie.

But Sasai, however, does.

Exactly.

And that's the point.

God damn it.

we should have based society on shakira's hips and not the economy and not that made up shit

i entirely agree with that statement

You mordiste la manzana

Y renunciaste al paraíso

Y condenaste a una serpiente

Siendo tú el que así lo quiso

Por milenios y milenios

Permaneciste desnudo

Y te enfrentaste a dinosaurios

Bajo un techo y sin escudo

Y ahora estás aquí

Queriendo ser feliz

Cuando no te importó

Un pepino

So we've already heard a little bit about the video from Anna there.

Not glad she pretty much explained the whole thing,

because I was kind of watching it going,

I don't hugely get what the point is,

but it did kind of start clicking together

when I found the translation of the lyrics.

It does fit in with the lyrics quite well,

if nothing else, I suppose.

There's a very big culture of,

well, in Spanish-speaking countries,

it's the quinceanera,

and Brazil is Festa de Quinze,

almost like a version of Sweet Sixteen,

But those balls used to be when women were ready to get married and enter society, debutant balls.

So like the main reason for those big, massive bash of a party used to be for you to essentially say to the eligible single man that you are available and ready to become a wife.

Now, this is quite an antiquated view of it, but those balls still go on a lot.

And there is a very big focus on etiquette and on like how you're going to get dressed

and the dancing of it.

People practice the dancing for ages and all of that as well.

And the masked ball that you see at the start is also mocking this because it is all a put

on show.

People don't use it as much as like a debutante kind of situation as they used to use before.

But it's kind of like this view of being a very antiquated tradition that is still being

put on essentially to show wealth and to show off what's going on in there and show off your dresses

and show off that you can afford to do something like that. Is it like one person having this ball

or is it kind of like a prom in America where it's a bunch of people all at once? You can either have

one person putting up a big party. I went to many of those but then there is also like country clubs

and they make a massive one where they actually have catwalks and you show off your dresses and

And all of those things.

Yes, yes.

I was, my family wanted, really wanted me to take part.

I decided against it.

And I'm not going to lie, Shakira had a hand on this.

There you go, Shakira, break his stereotypes and traditions and Brazilian families apart.

That shows that the video has had a better, well, the video and the song has had a better

impact already then.

And I know I'm not from Colombia, but her presence in Brazil was really big at the time.

just remember being fascinated by it and really being taken by her songs it's one of my favorite

things to show random people at like a party someone put on the music and i was like all right

blam 90 shikira didn't see that one come did you what's with the legs planted in the ground

i get masks and all the other the other like societal bushes but the legs in the ground well

i was trying to look for interpretations of that actually i i just always enjoyed the the visual

aspect of it or just having all this feet sticking out. But like one of the ways you can interpret it

is like when you're down to earth, you can say like that you have your feet on the ground and

like maybe you have your head in the clouds because it doesn't make sense. Society doesn't

make sense. So everything is like upside down and people are doing things that you don't have to and

that make no sense. The idea of the feet up in the air is that, is that society is up in the air.

Nobody really knows what they're doing and they're desperately trying to hold on to something that

makes no sense if you actually need to sit down and analyze your three and a half minute music

video with a fucking dictionary is it actually worth the attempt what i'm saying it's very like

i'm 14 and this is deep territory but i mean i remember when i first showed you the video clip

the very first thing that came to your mind was i is the one with all the feet up but yeah it is

with the one with all the feet like this is the only thing you remember the feet in the masks i

never really stopped to think much about the feet up until like oh fuck i have to talk about this

and a podcast, I have to actually think about why there is so many feet.

I never did before.

I'm glad it's not just me that thinks that before doing this podcast.

Oh, God, I've got to talk about it.

Exactly.

I was like, I really love this thing.

Or like, oh, I've been exposed to this a lot.

Oh, I never thought about this aspect of it.

They might ask me.

I actually thought it might be like a reference to something either Colombian

or like there's something cultural about not necessarily feet,

But like an imagery that you recognize and they just decide to use feet instead of X or whatever.

As I said, I am not from Colombia.

So there might be an extra layer of, you know, cultural knowledge in there that I'm not aware.

OK.

The other thing that I've read about it when I was like, oh, what does this mean?

That is like a criticism against like women wearing like high heeled shoes and like the

constraint of shoes.

and I was like, now that's a bit 14-year-old girl going,

ooh, this is really smart.

What do you think about the general style of it?

Ignoring if the metaphors are too on the nose or not.

Oh, it's like very Alanis Morissette.

Alanis Morissette.

Every time when I watched it, it's like,

oh yeah, okay, she's doing a you-autonom kind of thing.

Okay, yeah, I can see what she's doing.

That's fine.

It was 96, everyone was kind of doing,

putting themselves in sort of kind of boxes.

When I watched it, I got a Red Hot Chili Peppers vibe.

because during the 90s they I think visually they made stuff kind of like that you can't really get

a read on it you just kind of watch it and go I don't know it's like a visual medley of just

things that they thought this looks good I got that exact same vibe from this and that's why it

kind of confused me when I first watched it because I couldn't really well I didn't know what

was going on for starters I didn't know what the actual uh translation of the of the title was

honestly it was really funny what Anna's just explained it sort of actually makes it make a lot

of sense my sort of initial thoughts would have been brush it off as like a quirky dodgy music

video that i just don't get a little more um deeper connotations and meanings that that i didn't

pick up on yay makes sense so that i can't i kind of really appreciate that actually that you actually

were here to kind of to me turn a song which i would say that's shit but it kind of makes it a

little bit more it's a little bit deeper gives it more sense i think i literally had pretty much the

same experience because i'm gonna have to throw out my old uh review now that i understand what's

going on me maybe being really hard on songs because we just don't get what's going on hold

on maybe i think you might like it maybe has something deeper there we just needed to get

i think that's the one we can all agree on did not have anything deeper going on

Do you want me to read out the translated lyrics?

Mm-hmm.

That seemed to go down the last time.

Asterix. I got these off Google, so Anna, tell me if these are inaccurate.

You belong to an ancient race of barefoot feet and white dreams.

You were dust and dust you are now.

You think that iron is always soft to the heat.

You bit the apple and relinquish paradise.

Condemned the snake when you were the one who wanted it.

For millenniums and millenniums, you stood naked and you fought dinosaurs under a roof

with no shield.

And now here you are wanting to be happy when you don't give a damn about your destiny.

You built an exact world with such perfect finishes.

Each thing calculated in its time and in its place.

I, who am in complete chaos, the ins and outs, the names, the measures, don't fit in my brain.

Someone who's typing jet fuel doesn't melt steam beams

over the lyrics in the Google Doc.

That was a me-up song.

You get a gist.

Yeah, it's definitely not what I thought

when I listened to it initially.

The way she sings it, though, the choices of words,

it really, really gets to me.

Because there's one line that I particularly love.

When she says that you don't care about your destiny,

the way she says that is that you do not give a cucumber.

It's a funny thing because it's very intercultural.

But like we wouldn't use cucumbers in that same way to like compare it to like how much

value you give to something.

But we would use it for like problems or like if something is inconvenient, it's a cucumber.

Just compare your whole destiny to a cucumber and you don't care about it.

Life is like a box of cucumbers.

I don't know where I'm going to go with that joke.

I just have one thought.

And again, I'm sorry, I don't want to shit in your memories.

And I'm fully aware that you listen to that when you're like a kid.

I'm going to put that quote on the website.

I don't want to shit in your memories, Nelly.

No, I'm curious now.

It just sounds like something a 19-year-old would sing, honestly.

Like, who is me?

And it's like how nobody understands the importance of whatever.

It's like, okay, honey, it's fine.

It's fine.

It's just you.

It's fine.

Just put your shoes on.

because you're gonna get hurt otherwise and let's go and grab a beer or something it's fine how old

was she at this point 19 oh no it's entirely a teenager song absolutely yeah yeah no it's it's

entirely her like exploring her place in the world and just like it's all that kind of like coming to

age kind of shit um you know and like going around like questioning is like why are those

the things we have to do you know things are dumb i don't give a cucumber to your ideas

and but to me i was at that age when this came out so to me it was just like oh my god shakira

gets me to be fair if i go back and listen to some of the stuff i listened to when i was a teenager

it was it was just full-blown teenage angst bullshit exactly it is it is and it's great

go back in time and just tell your teenage self wait till you have real problems

You get a lot of media and about like other countries and all of those things.

So I did grow up with, you know, white Christmases and when there was none and all of this kind of things.

So it's nice to have like an international pop sensation that is coming from a place that you can identify with culturally to a deeper level.

So even though it's from a different country, there's like a lot of the imposed Catholicism of certain aspects of society and the way that plays out.

It was something I used to get to me a lot.

And to hear someone as big as she was at the time talking about it was just amazing.

I think you said earlier that there was some religious connotations in the song.

Well, it tells you right at the start of the song that you were born with bare feet and white dreams until you ate an apple and denounced the entire society just because you felt like it.

That's the start of the song.

That's the intro to it.

I'm very confused.

Is that song pro-Catholicism or against Catholicism?

No, it's against it.

If anything is against it.

I think it's against it.

I mean, I don't know if it's against Catholicism.

I think it's against the idea that by Eve eating an apple, she banished mankind and kind of like

recreated this entire idea of what society should be like.

Total saying, no, I always thought that sounded petty as fuck.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah, my apple.

Oh, how about suffering?

How about that?

I know.

Well, did you know that's why women, that's why we have periods and labor pains is also

derived from that.

Oh, yeah, I'd heard that, yeah.

Thanks, God.

Why are you thinking about what?

He's doing it sarcastically.

I will never talk to God sarcastically.

There is a Bulgarian stand-up comedian.

And one of his sketches, one of his skits, was...

I can't remember what the context was, but he was trying to make a point that he's getting

a direct line to God by sticking his finger in his belly button.

Right.

Does he keep his finger there while he's talking to him?

Or does he just use it as a button, you press it, and then you remove it, and then you have

to press it again

to stop.

No, he just

kept it there.

I had a conversation.

Neil, are you okay?

Yeah, I'm just

listening.

I'm not religious.

I don't sort of

follow anything.

Though I do believe

in aliens.

Now, I'm taking the piss.

Statistically, there

must be aliens given

the size of the universe,

et cetera, et cetera.

Hopefully, they'll come

around soon and save us

from ourselves.

Let's hope so.

If I was an alien,

I would stay the hell

away from us.

Oh, we've got all

these great music videos.

let's talk yeah let's briefly talk about the um our fun experiences we've had when we've gone to

the toilet in clubs. The weird people

with masks, people playing music

and singing.

You know, casual stuff.

I'm pretty sure I went through that

whole video clip in a club toilet.

It was actually probably when I was

in my teenage wild years

in Brazil on my

fancy cabaret voltaires

and stuff like that. Because, you know, there is a

cabaret voltaire. Nearly them everywhere

I've ever lived. There's one in Edinburgh. Yeah, I know.

There's one in Edinburgh. There's one, well,

there was one in my hometown.

as well and it was a great club i need to diverge to a very silly thing about that club because i

think you will find this amusing okay if you don't mind but in that club there was a cast iron

stairwell that was like a spiral stairwell kind of thing and there was a guy that was famous for

sniffing people's feet and he used to stay under the stairs and like lean forward and sniff people's

feet and i remember going up uh the stairs and just like seeing this nose with the nostrils flaring up

oh and that was probably the club i've lived through the whole entirety of this video clip

inside my head.

So they never kicked him out.

They just let, oh, you know, he's part of the furniture.

Kind of, yeah.

It was one of those places.

It was one of those like underground places.

Yeah, okay.

I get that.

Like I know a few people that he paid to lick the sole of their shoes.

And it was a real deal.

But he'll never bother you or like harass you or anything.

And if he wanted something with you or your feet, he would always be kind about it.

So it was a very non-problematic kink.

Sounds like a lovely man.

I never spoke much.

Looking back to when clubs one existed and two, I went to them.

There was many nights where I ran out of money with still like an hour to go.

I think there may have been points where I would have been drunk enough to sell this guy my feet first and return for a few more drinks.

It's fair.

I just thought that one was suitable because we are talking about feet after all.

so.

He would love

this video.

I'm pretty sure

he does.

He's like the

Brazilian

Quentin Tarantino.

Took the words

from my mouth.

The listeners at home

they're having their

little gig in the

toilet which is

just generally a bit

of a strange thing

to do.

But it's that

strange.

I remember

the week

like the

Glasgow School of

Art Union

Club before

closed down

things happening.

It makes sense

that the Glasgow

School of Art

would have a band

playing in the

toilet.

That does check

out.

It wasn't a band more like one person act usually.

Oh, oh shit.

Scott.

What?

Nice.

Fuck.

Sorry, guys.

We're back in a minute.

What happened?

Well, that was confusing.

Latest of elements.

What has just happened?

Martians are melting people.

I know.

We were talking about aliens.

I just got my invitation for my vaccination.

Yay!

It's Friday.

Congratulations.

I need to kick in on Phuket.

I'm getting 5G.

I'll never have you see Wi-Fi anymore.

Yay!

You can walk around flaunting your immunity.

You can walk around flaunting your immunity.

What are we doing?

You're talking about Shakira.

Oh, her hips don't lie.

Shakira, Shakira.

I think it is quite a good conversation starter.

And I think, you know, everyone who has a sort of an initial opinion,

I mean, he just brushes it off.

You can kind of give them this good rundown in summary

of what it actually means and what it's all about.

And it's a cultural difference at the end of the day.

So it's nice to actually get a better understanding on something

that I didn't really understand or really appreciate initially.

Konyo Shakira used to be an Alanis Morissette impersonator.

Well, I'm sure a lot of people did.

But my introduction to her was when she dyed her hair blonde

and sang about her breasts being smaller than mountains.

The video for... oh, uh, Piedes Calo's Suenius Blancos, I apologize, is strictly okay.

I'm sure I would have appreciated it much more had I been around it growing up.

Now it just feels like a generic try-hard-to-be-deep 90s video, but no judge though, it was 90s,

everything was try-hard.

It was quite nice to see a sort of pre-pop sensation version of Shakira.

It's always interesting seeing where people come from and all that jazz.

The song's pretty good, it's pretty catchy.

The video is maybe a bit on the nose, maybe a bit teenage angsty, but you know, we all had our teenage angst phase.

And I listened to my fair share of teenage angsty music when I was younger, so I can't really judge.

Overall, Priggin?

Yeah, well, that's how I got to know Shakira.

That was the first Shakira that showed up in my life.

I used to really like her music.

I was really disappointed when she started becoming a bit more pop and all of those things,

because I felt a bit betrayed by her

because this was what I thought was Shakira

and what she stood for, at least at that time.

So, but to me, this video has been incredibly influential

and it has touched me because of the age

when I actually got to see this.

To me, Shakira, this is who she is from the very start.

And whenever I see her like social work

and things like that,

like when she actually speaks as a spokesperson,

that this is what I think of.

This is who she is in my mind forever.

To me, this video clip just represents a whole horde of things,

including my cat.

As you can see, my cat entirely agrees.

We've heard it as many times together.

Best part was just how wacky it was.

And I've seen Shakira play an instrument.

I didn't know she could play a guitar.

So that was interesting.

Best part?

Yeah, that was probably it.

Worst part was just whenever I didn't get before I got it, you know, the legs in the ground.

I just confused the crap out of me and I didn't really get the point of it.

But now I get it.

So it's not really a worst part anymore.

So I'm going to redact that and say I don't really have a worst part.

So my favorite part of this video was the field of legs.

Because no amount of figuring it out will change the fact that it's weird as fuck.

And I love it.

My runner up for favorite part was the toilet sound.

When they open the door, like when they go through the masquerade bowl and they open the door, there is a toilet sound.

I was like, what?

Why?

I second on the toilet sound.

So, like, just why?

Because it's all shit.

It just flushes it.

No, no, don't ruin it.

It doesn't have a reason.

It's just a toilet sound.

Just a random toilet sound in there.

And the worst point for me was a bit of a nitpicking,

but the very first moment when the door opens,

it just reminds me a lot of the Wannabe videos,

and now I just want to listen to Wannabe instead of this song.

As in the Spice Girls?

The Spice Girls, yes.

All right.

I'll have to look into that.

Favorite part, this is a random one.

There was a bit of a cutaway where Kira was sitting on top of

this big wooden chair looking over the field of legs, I think,

and she's just kind of swinging her legs away in time of the song,

and she kind of just looks like she's a happy little kid sitting on a swing,

and for some reason that made me laugh.

So that was my favourite part.

And the worst part is, well, I couldn't really find anything specific I didn't like about it.

Only, like I said before, the only general thing is maybe it's a bit on the nose,

but apart from that, I couldn't really find anything to be particularly angry at.

My favourite part?

Well, I have to say I agree with Nellie,

the way toilet sound just makes me chuckle every time.

It's just too good.

Too good.

I also really like the feet.

So I feel like we're in a similar idea there.

But yeah, I just like, to me, actually, probably my favorite is when she says the word pepino

and the face that she makes when she's saying pepino is my favorite of all times.

I don't have a part I don't like because I really like the video clip.

It's probably one of my favorite video clips of all times, even though I know it's weird

and insane, but I just really like it.

So I can't say anything bad about it.

What does pepino mean?

Cucumber.

Oh, yeah, we've already covered the cucumber.

Peppino.

That should be our new code, this type of bacon.

Peppino.

Healthy alternative to bacon when you have a laggy connection.

Naturally crunchy.

So the video gets an eye from me?

Eye, definitely eye.

We were going to say eye from you as well.

Oh yeah.

I'm still here.

Oh, you see?

I'm just...

The call's coming from inside the room.

I, uh, yeah, no, it's, uh, yeah,

I guess it's an eye from me because

I can't really find a fault with it now,

so, yep, eye from me.

Eye from me. So I think overall

a much more positive reaction

than, uh, Kelly Keith.

You can say that again.

It sounds like it. It sounds like it

this nostalgia trip of my own has I managed to take you on board you just watched the train

pass by last time and waved in disgust this time you came along thanks that's a very good way of

okay so uh take take a look at the show notes for links to today's video clip links to instagram

etc you can also email us at gone to forecast at gmail.com we'd love to hear your thoughts and

any recommendations for videos if you're enjoying the podcast leave us a review on apple podcast

Spotify or your podcast player of choice

yeah say goodbye everyone

I was getting progressively higher there I don't know why

say goodbye everyone

bye

bye

Shakira Shakira