Is "If I Could" (El Cóndor Pasa) by Simon and Garfunkel truly a melancholic song?

I write this post after hearing Simon & Garfunkel’s “El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)” in a café. Their version is one of the most popular interpretations of this Peruvian piece and, perhaps, the version through which it is best known in North America.

What is remarkable, however, is that Simon & Garfunkel’s version foregrounds only one dimension of the original. They take up its melancholic movement and add English lyrics centered on longing and frustrated desire. In this post, I want to reflect on what their version captures, but also on what it leaves aside.

“El Cóndor Pasa” was originally composed by Daniel Alomía Robles in 1913 as part of a zarzuela, or musical play, of the same name. The famous melody was not originally a pop song with lyrics. It was an instrumental piece that appeared within the dramatic action of the play.

In the zarzuela, there is a scene in which a feast is held in honor of a couple’s wedding. During the dance, the sky darkens and a storm seems to approach. The people pray to the Virgin, singing in her honor, and the sun shines again. The couple and their friends then head toward town for the wedding, dancing in procession. It is in this parade scene that “El Cóndor Pasa” is played. One important detail is that the miners cannot join the parade because they are unable to leave work.

Simon & Garfunkel adapted the piece in 1970. Their version is marked by melancholy: the desire to go elsewhere, to become something lighter or freer, while remaining tied to the ground. The repeated wish — “If I could” — gives the song its emotional structure. Desire appears as something imagined but not reached. Freedom is felt through its impossibility.

I do not want to deny the beauty of Simon & Garfunkel’s interpretation. It is beautiful. But there is another important detail about the original piece.

“El Cóndor Pasa” is often understood as moving between two Andean musical affects: the yaraví and the huayno. The yaraví is associated with sadness, longing, and lament. This is the dimension that Simon & Garfunkel’s version most clearly preserves. The huayno, by contrast, is more festive and celebratory. This later movement is not included in their version.

That omission is valid as an artistic choice. But it is also worth noticing because there is a long stereotype that associates Indigenous life almost exclusively with sadness or loss. One might think, for instance, of the melancholy through which Indigenous peoples are often represented in popular culture. Of course, Indigenous communities have experienced and continue to experience profound injustice. But this does not mean that Indigenous life can be reduced to mourning.

Andean music contains melancholy, yes. But it also contains music for festivals, courtship, joy, ritual, work, dance, and celebration. To hear only the lament is to miss part of the world from which the music comes.

This is why the huayno section matters. It reminds us that “El Cóndor Pasa” is not only a song of longing or sadness. It also belongs to a wider Andean musical universe in which grief and joy, labor and festivity, prayer and dance can exist together.

Here is a YouTube video that includes the huayno section of “El Cóndor Pasa.” The huayno begins around minute 2:47, and it gives a fuller sense of the piece’s emotional range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rZxLQg3Io