Mariachi Lyrics Archive
Guadalajara
It smells like roses and tastes like wet earth. Guadalajara is a city made into a poem, and Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán is its most devoted singer.
About the Song
Guadalajara is one of Mexico's most beloved regional anthems, composed by Pepe Guízar in 1939. The song celebrates the capital of Jalisco with sensory poetry — its smell, its taste, its sound — and became synonymous with Mexican nostalgia and regional pride. Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán, one of the great mariachi ensembles named after a town near Guadalajara, brings particular authority to this celebration of their home region. The song has been recorded hundreds of times but is most at home in the full mariachi arrangement that gives it its cathedral quality.
Meaning of the Song
Guadalajara smells like roses and tastes like wet earth — that's the kind of city description only a poet could write and only a mariachi could make you believe. Pepe Guízar didn't describe Guadalajara; he made you want to go there, to smell those roses, to eat that prickly pear even at the cost of pricking your hand. Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán plays it like a homecoming, because for them, it is.
Lyrics / Letra
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Tienes el alma de provinciana
Hueles a limpia rosa temprana
A verde jara fresca del río
Son mil palomas tu caserío
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Sabes a pura tierra mojada
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Hueles a pura tierra mojada
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Tienes el alma de provinciana
Hueles a limpia rosa temprana
A verde jara fresca del río
Son mil palomas tu caserío
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Sabes a pura tierra mojada
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Tienes el alma más mexicana
Que aquel tequila, taberna y jarana
De Jalisco es mi Guadalajara
Hueles a pura tierra mojada
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Tienes el alma de provinciana
Hueles a limpia rosa temprana
A verde jara fresca del río
Son mil palomas tu caserío
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Sabes a pura tierra mojada
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Hueles a pura tierra mojada
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Tienes el alma de provinciana
Hueles a limpia rosa temprana
A verde jara fresca del río
Son mil palomas tu caserío
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Sabes a pura tierra mojada
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Tienes el alma más mexicana
Que aquel tequila, taberna y jarana
De Jalisco es mi Guadalajara
Hueles a pura tierra mojada
English Translation
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
you have the soul of provincial towns
you smell of fresh clean roses
of green rushes fresh from the river
thousand doves make up your neighborhood
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
you taste of pure wet earth
Ay, distant little hills
Ay, little sister springs
Ay, distant little hills
Ay, little sister springs
Guadalajara in a plain
Mexico in a lagoon
I must eat that prickly pear
even if I prick my hand
Ay little stick how I love you
I want to know where you live
to bring your mother
carnations and roses and lilies
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
you have the soul of provincial towns
you smell of fresh clean roses
of green rushes fresh from the river
thousand doves make up your neighborhood
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
you taste of pure wet earth
Ay, distant little hills
Ay, little sister springs
Ay, distant little hills
Ay, little sister springs
Guadalajara in a plain
Mexico in a lagoon
I must eat that prickly pear
even if I prick my hand
Ay little stick how I love you
I want to know where you live
to bring your mother
carnations and roses and lilies
