Juanito Alimaña
Willie Colón & Héctor Lavoe · 1983 · written by Tite Curet Alonso, from the album Vigilante
Meet the barrio's slipperiest thief: he robs a store in plain sight, is back on the street the day after an arrest, and nobody ever saw a thing.
The story
1.The concrete jungle
The song doesn't start with a character but with the street itself: a jungle of cement, full of wild beasts. Nobody walks out the door carefree anymore, because the worst can be waiting anywhere.
2.Enter Juanito
Then in comes Juanito Alimaña, smooth and crafty. He walks up to a store counter, pulls a knife, and tells them to hand over the cash register. He has a big pistol too. He takes the money and he's gone, fast as the wind.
3.Nobody saw a thing
People saw him run. Nobody says a word. The whole neighborhood knows what he does, and nobody turns him in: he's dangerous, and everybody knows that too.
4.Out the next day
Even when the police do lock him up, he's back on the street the next day. The reason is simple: a cousin of his works for the police.
5.His world
The chorus sums up his life: women, a smoke and some rum, and robbing people for a living. That's how Juanito lives, and the song never catches him. He's still out there.
Key phrases
- “la calle es una selva de cemento”The street is a jungle made of cementThe song's opening line: before we meet anyone, it sets the scene. A concrete jungle full of wild animals, where trouble is waiting everywhere.
- “Juanito Alimaña con mucha maña”Juanito Vermin, with plenty of craftAn alimaña is vermin: a pest, the animal that raids the henhouse at night. Maña is a knack, a crafty skill. The name and the rhyme tell you exactly who he is before the story does.
- “nadie ha visto nada”Nobody has seen anythingThe code of silence on the block. Everyone saw it, nobody will say so: they're afraid of him, and nobody wants to be the one who talked.
- “un primo suyo está en la policía”A cousin of his is in the policeWhy an arrest never sticks: he's out again the next day. The law isn't just slow, it's family.
- “fumada y caña”A smoke and rumPart of the chorus's picture of his world. Fumada is a smoke, and in street slang, of marijuana. Caña, from sugar cane, is cheap rum or cane liquor.
Context
Tite Curet Alonso was a Puerto Rican songwriter behind a long list of salsa classics, among them “Periódico de Ayer” for Héctor Lavoe, “Las Caras Lindas” for Ismael Rivera and “Anacaona” for Cheo Feliciano.
Vigilante was recorded in 1982 as the soundtrack of a film of the same name and came out on Fania in 1983. It reunited Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe, years after Lavoe had gone solo, partly to help Lavoe through a hard time in his life.
Like Pedro Navaja, it's a crime story with a groove under it. But where Pedro gets what's coming to him, Juanito gets away with everything, and that's the song's point: fear, silence and a police force that looks after its own let a small-time thief rule the block.
On the dance floor
Willie Colón's trombones and Lavoe's voice again, in a steady, swinging groove that's a favorite on social dance floors.
The verses tell the robbery like a news report from the corner. Dance it easy and let the story land.
Then the montuno: the coro answers Lavoe, and he fires back improvised lines round after round. That's the build to dance into.
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, Tite Curet Alonso.