No te vayas de Zamboanga: thoughts and translations

While wasting away my weekend on Youtube I came across the wonderful little song “No te vayas de Zamboanga” (Don’t Leave Zamboanga) and was intrigued. The description says it is in Chabacano, the Spanish creole spoken in Zamboanga (and in some parts of Cavite and Davao), except it isn’t: the song is written in Spanish—español, castellano, whichever you prefer—much like the more familiar ballad “Zamboanga hermosa” (Beautiful Zamboanga), with some dialectal idiosyncrasies peculiar to Philippine Spanish.

Here are the lyrics of the song, followed by my translation in English:

No te vayas, no te vayas de Zamboanga
Que me puedes, que me puedes olvidar.
No te vayas, no te vayas, no me dejes
Que yo sin tí, no puedo estar.

No llores, paloma mía.
No llores, que volveré.
No llores, que cuando llegue
Paloma mía te escribiré.

Con una pluma de ave,
Con una pedazo de papel,
Con la sangre de mis venas,
Paloma mía, te escribiré.

And here’s the English translation, with the repetitions removed.

Don’t leave Zamboanga
Because [then] you might forget me
Don’t go away, don’t leave me
Because without you, I cannot be.

Do not cry, my dove.
Do not cry for I’ll come back.
Do not cry, for when I arrive
To you my dove, I’ll write:

With the plume of a bird
With a piece of paper
With the blood in my veins
To you my dove, I’ll write.