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El Día de Mi Suerte

Willie Colón & Héctor Lavoe · 1973 · written by Willie Colón & Héctor Lavoe, from the album Lo Mato

An orphan at ten, then the street, then prison, and he's still sure his lucky day is coming: a hard-luck story over one of salsa's happiest choruses.

The story

  1. 1.A hard start

    When he was small, his mother died and left him alone with his father, who promised he'd never be left alone. But his father got sick too, and when the boy was ten he died.

    At the funeral, people told the crying boy not to cry: his luck would change.

  2. 2.Waiting

    So he waited for his luck, but his life took another road. He was surviving in a world he couldn't get out of, and to eat you have to get money somehow.

    He ended up in prison, where his friends wrote to him with the same line: don't worry, your luck will change.

  3. 3.Still waiting

    Now he's alone, wondering what will become of his life, with no place to go back to and nobody he wants to be a burden on. He's tired of waiting, but if fate betrays him again he swears he won't fail.

    And every time, the chorus comes back: his lucky day is coming, before he dies.

Key phrases

  • “Pronto llegará el día de mi suerte”My lucky day will come soonThe chorus, and his whole philosophy. The future tense, llegará, is a promise he makes himself.
  • “antes de mi muerte”Before I dieThe fine print on his hope: sure, his luck will change, but maybe not soon.
  • “No llores, nene”Don't cry, kidNene is Puerto Rican for a little boy. It's what the grown-ups told him at his father's funeral.
  • “Para comer hay que buscarse el real”To eat, you have to go get the moneyA real was an old Spanish coin, and in the Caribbean el real still means money. The line explains, without saying it, how he ended up on the wrong side of the law.
  • “No te apures que tu suerte cambiará”Don't worry, your luck will changeIn Caribbean Spanish, no te apures means “don't worry”, not “don't hurry”. It's what his friends write to him in prison.

Context

Also from Lo Mato (Fania, 1973), the same album as “Calle Luna, Calle Sol”. The original record credits the song to Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe together.

It's the story of a boy who loses everything and a man who keeps waiting for his luck to turn, told over one of the happiest-sounding choruses in salsa. That mix of hard life and hope is a lot of why the barrio loved Lavoe.

On the dance floor

A bright, swinging groove, and a chorus everybody sings along to. It's a feel-good song despite its story.

The coro repeats that his day will come, and Lavoe answers with the story, verse by verse, then with improvised lines. The chorus is where to put your energy.

This is our own retelling of the song, not its lyrics or a translation of them: the few short phrases quoted are there to explain what they mean. The song belongs to its writer, Willie Colón & Héctor Lavoe.