SONG MEANING ABOUT EA EA

“Oh come to me, child of mine”. Blanca Paloma‘s song “Eaea” dives deep into Spanish tradition and takes us on an emotional and empowering journey: Blanca performs a chant to her late grandmother, built upon the musical legacy that she inherited from her.

This song is a traditional buleria (a flamenco subgenre), very traditional Spanish music from the south of Spain, with some modernized elements. Bulerias are mostly sang almost a capella, accompanied by a guitar and a drum-like instrument which is basically a wooden box hit using your palms. In this modernized version they have no guitar, and the wooden box is replaced by some electronic beats imitating a drum, that's all.

This song is a lullaby. Lullabies are used to comfort babies or children, relax them and help them go to sleep, or at least make them stop crying. This version is not going to help anybody go to sleep, because it is faster than usual and the tone is too loud for that, but the essence is right there.

"Ea ea" (pronounced Eh-ah Eh-ah, like the vowel sound in “there”) is not a word, it is a soothing sound used in Spanish to make children calm down, so it is very often used in lullabies. The English equivalente is the soothing expression "There, there".

Blanca Paloma composed this song in remembrance of a lullaby her grand-mother Carmen used to sing to her when she was a child, and that's what the lyrics are all about.

But Blanca confessed, there is another story blended with these memories from her grand-mother. The flamenco style of music is a very old tradition, very emotional and strong. She wants to be worthy of receiving this tradition and being able to pass it on, so the whole song is mixed with a kind of magical ancestral tribal ritual where a group of women prepare an imaginary potion and invoke the spirits to have the energy and worth to keep the tradition alive and passionate.

Both stories are intertwined. The lyrics are a lullaby in memory of her grandmother, and the dancing and choirs are a tribal ritual to get the strength to keep this tradition going.
Paloma was a stage and performance designer, so she included a lot of little things into the performance to make it meaningful and powerful. Let's reveal a few.

The performance on stage is very very symbolic. At the beginning we can see kind of red string curtains surrounding the singer and giving her cover, from which, arms come out to caress her. That scene reflects the way she felt as a baby when her grandmother held her in her lap, the strings are the same as the decoration hanging from the edge of the traditional Manila shawl (see picture) worn by her grandmother, so she was surrounded by those soft "strings" while her granny's arms gave her protection and comfort and her voice sent her pains away.

Her grandmother says she wants to be buried in the moon when she dies, so she can still keep watch over her beloved child and protect her. The first time she sings that part we can see the camera rising up to unveil a rounded spot of white light which represents the full moon, but the black shape of the singer is inside, also representing a watching eye.

There is a moment when Blanca pretends to shoot an arrow. We can't see it clearly on the video but in fact she is aiming at the centre of the stage. As soon as she shoots the arrow the stage turns red with a pulsating light. That image represents love: like Cupid, she shoots her love arrow towards the chest of her grandmother (represented by the round of red strings), and her grandmother's heart responds with passion.

Every word, every move has a meaning. Poetry.

Watch the original music video here.