EthnoBass.org: I've been at the round table conference and it seemed to me very interesting what you remarked about traditional music and its evolution, the definitions you've pointed out... But I'd like to ask you, who do you think is now responsible for, or what is nowadays the driving force of the evolution of traditional music? Because if they're not folk groups nor...
Mercedes Peón: It's the people itself.

EB.: But, how's the mechanism?
M.: The mechanism is due to social roles, as you're being transformed and have children, these children live in a different society, society evolves, and these children evolve together with society. Then you can find a... The thing is, this is what I've seen in Galicia, but I suppose if you go to Morocco you'll able to feel it in a greater way. The thing is, I think it's the same everywhere. Let's see if I make my point. For example, 40 years ago there were "cantares de bois", that's how I call them, that are the songs sung when accompanying the oxcart...

EB.: Like one track you have on the album, before "Deixa"?
M.: So if the role disappears, then the song disappears or evolves that melody into other thing, because instead of going with the cart they go with other stuff. Then everything evolves and with the very communication of the people. That is to say, in the 19th century only ribeiranas were danced, nothing else. Why were punteadas danced in that village? There's an obvious evolution in the 20th century. Why? Because suddenly women don't look down at the floor anymore, they raise their heads now, women now dare to start the dance with the guiding steps -and formerly only the man used to-, and all this assembles an evolution within tradition itself, but it's an evolution that... 

With languages: why isn't Spanish today like it was 200 years ago? Well, due to the same, it's something natural, it's the people itself who make it evolve. And there are creators from the people itself. It seems that, as I release an album, I'm already a creator. No, there were already creators within the people itself. For example, in Galicia people sing rumbas created in 1930, and you say: who created them? Ladies in a village, a very little village. They transposed the melody of ribeiranas to the rhythm of rumba that was foreign to it and had nothing to do with it, and they created a rumba you won't find in nowhere else in the world, only in Galicia. It's a musical transportation. As in a conservatoire, but they do it naturally.

EB.: Do you think that, speaking of a range of topics in lyrics, there are really traditional songs -taking strictly as traditional what you defined before at the round table conference? Do you think that there are lyrics adapted to the real present day?
M.: Look, do you know regueifeiros? Or Brazilian repentistas? They're people that come from tradition, they make use of ancient melodies, with just three verses. It's a several hours fight, that is to say, you and me begin to make regueifas, and I tell you: "that hair of yours is not real", and you say: "look who's talking, you with a crew cut?" Talking about the present day in the two of us. We'd put together this. Well, so this is carried out by people that are alive, they're not obsolete people, far from it. There are young regueifeiros in Galicia -20, 30, 40 years old-, not to say in Brazil, regueifeiros are now the order of the day. And they create lyrics spontaneously, it's like a fight. "Repentista" comes from "repente", a sudden movement. And regueifa, the etymology of this word... it's a tricky matter. A short while back I found out that "regueif" in Moroccan Arabic means "bread made with eggs". It emerges that in Galicia "regueifa" is a bun of bread made with eggs and decorated, which in certain areas of Galicia people bore on their heads while dancing, and those were the places where regueifa was performed. If I got married, then you, as one of the best regueifeiros, were invited by me to the guests' table to defend me from the other regueifeiro that came to tell me: "ah, look how the bride goes, whatever..." It was like a game. This is really odd, because it is said Arabs didn't reach Galicia, but fancy that, there's practically the same word in Morocco and in Galicia, and nowadays there are regueifeiros, that is to say, they clearly talk about present day. They're popular folksongs created just right at the moment. Not just about present day, but about what's going on at this very moment.
"I'm very young. Now I devote myself to music. The day I'll want to write, I'll sit down and write."

EB.: All this you're telling me about regueifeiros, are you thinking of documenting it in order to publish it?
M.: Phew! I'm very young. Now I devote myself to music. About publishing... I give lectures. A short time ago I gave one in Sorbonne, now I'm going to Porto, I give them at the Consello de Cultura Galega as well... Then I prepare this, talks, lectures and so, and the day I'll want to sit down and write about some topics, I'll sit down and write about regueifa or about... Phew! The thing is, there's no end of them. Look, I've been doing a field collection for 20 years, then just imagine the stuff I've gathered there, I've got 2000 tapes, it's really a huge amount, at least, an hour per tape...
EB.: Then will you release a new album for 2002?
M.: Look, that's not my aim. I've got plenty of tunes, but what I'm now interested is in the well going of the band and in performing; I've got already fourteen tunes selected for the next album, I don't know if I'm going to do it this year or the next one. Have you listened to the album?

EB.: Yes, I have.
M.: Do you realize the amount of arrangements and the careful treatment each tune has? The thing is, each tune is a world, I give each song... I give them my whole life so I can give concrete form to those feelings I have, and everything I want to convey. Then, I don't know if for 2002, maybe yes.
"I've got plenty of tunes, but what I'm now interested is in the well going of the band and in performing; I 've got already fourteen tunes selected for the next album"

EB.: Before you came, we were here waiting for you and a woman came and has commented you'd better not insert ska in songs, but something Arabic, like Hedningarna do.
M.: But then let Hedningarna do it. Why do I have to imitate anybody? This is rock bravú, born in Corunna and I belong to that new creation as well -I was called "A Raíña do Bravú" ("The Queen of Bravú"), so it´s a Galician rock style.

EB.: What's the meaning of "Adorro", the title of a song in "Isué"?
M.: Ah, it's nothing but a joke. There was a TV commercial of Galician beer, and a German said "Adooooorro Galicia" ("I luuuv Galicia"). It's a joke. It isn't Galician or anything.

EB.: How did you take it into your head to go from village to village and tape people?
M.: Well, I was really struck at 13 in a village called Imende, by the Death Coast, in Bergantiños. I had a tambourine, but what, I played awful, and some women came out of a bar -their husbands were playing card games-, they came out as powerful women, they borrowed my tambourine and began to play the ribeirana. And, of course, I felt it was mine. But they spoke in a Galician... It was frustrating because I didn't understand a word, because they talked with medieval idioms. In fact, a friend of mine who makes linguistic researches on Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Lebanese-Syrian... when I made them listen to ribeiranas at Sorbonne, they told me: "Merce, I swear I thought they were Berber." As Berber doesn't derive from Arabic, as she didn't understand, she said: "It's the same, it's the same." They're totally medieval modulations.
"I love to stake my all, to break the mould"

EB.: Pandereteiras, with their way of singing, remind me of Bulgarian women's singing.

M.: The thing is, well, we refer to that no-mike way of singing, a totally different way of directing the voice, but one thing is the timbre of the voice and other thing is the melody. Tambourines and voice. A field collection of this type I'm telling you about, what you're listening in pandereteiras and Bulgarian voices is what I was referring to when talking about performance at the conference: people that imitate what's being done at villages. You compare a Berber field collection to a Galician one, with ribeiranas, which is most ancient, and you go and say: it's the same. And I'm not saying we've got a connection with the Arab world, it's just for transgression's sake. The thing is, I love to stake my all, to break the mould... what with the Celtic matter, to me all the Celtic matter is really nice, it bonds together a lot of people without political reasons, without race reasons, without any reason at all, just for cultural connection's sake. It's extremely arguable but, of course, nice.

EB.: Regarding the coverage of Galician music, now greater than about five years ago, aren't you afraid of Galician music ethos getting distorted? Do you think it may be dangerous?