A perfect song to dedicate to the most special person in our lives like our mother.

– Los Diablitos

I first heard Los Caminos de la Vida (The Paths of Life) in the sleeper movie hit Sound of Freedom (2023). This partly crowd-funded film is set in my adopted home country – Colombia. According to the El Colombiano reference below; today’s song Los Caminos de la Vida is so part of Colombians’ DNA that it tugs at their heartstrings and stays with them forever; it’s as Colombian as el arroz con coco (rice with coconut) and the mountains with all shades of green; a song as Colombian as vallenato itself.

Vallenato music is a form of folk music that originated in the Caribbean region of Colombia. It is a depiction of Caribbean folklore and has been around for 200 years. The original version of Los Caminos de la Vida written by Omar Geles (singer and accordion player pictured above) is set to Vallenato music as seen in the official video version below. I have also presented a very popular cover version below that by Argentine artist Vicentico.

Vallenato is translated as ‘from the Valley’ and comes from a city called Valledupar, although some say the origins are in the departments of La Guajira, Córdoba, and Magdalena. It was only at the end of the 19th century that it became an official music genre. Vallenatos are typically played with three instruments: the guacharaca, a wooden percussion instrument invented by the indigenous Tairona people, the caja, a drum that originated from African slave communities and the accordion, a European instrument.

Since he was a child, Omar Geles in his musical ‘Valledupar’, was nicknamed ‘el Diablito‘ (the Little Devil). That same nickname would define the path of his group with the singers Miguel Morales and Alex Manga: “Los Diablitos” (The Little Devils). Los Caminos de la Vida was composed by remembering the difficulties of his childhood, the scarcity and lack of a father who left without returning. But above all things, it is dedicated to his mother; the brave, hard-working and capable woman who fought to raise a family, with the strength of her tired heart. Omar Geles wrote these lyrics in a yellow notebook in 1992, without knowing that it would become one of the two most listened to and hummed Colombian vallenato songs.

A crude English translation of the first part of Los Caminos de la Vida (The Paths of Life) follows:

The paths of life are not like
I thought, as I imagined them, they are not
as I believed

The paths of life are very difficult
Walking them is difficult
and I can’t find
The exit

I thought life was different
When I was little I believed
That things were easy like yesterday

That my good old lady was trying hard
To give me everything I needed
And today I realize how easy
it isn’t

Because my old lady is already tired
To work for my brother and me
And now I’m happy to help you.
And for my old lady, I will fight to the end

For her I will fight until I die
But I really don’t want to go down fighting
and my old lady dies, but what can I do?
If destiny is like this?

References:
1. Los caminos de la vida, una historia real que se hizo canción – El Colombiano
2. Colombia’s Vallenato: What to Know About the Iconic Music That Inspired Gabriel Marquez – The Culture Trip