Sin Pena Ni Gloria Lyrics in English by Joaquin Sabina
Pedigrí translates directly to "pedigree" in English. While often associated with animals, its use in this song is quite intriguing and unexpected.
Joaquín Sabina uses it metaphorically to describe the present moment as having an "infame pedigrí" (infamous pedigree). This suggests a present burdened by a questionable or ignoble past, giving the word a deeper, more critical meaning beyond its typical usage.
Joaquin Sabina builds this song around a single trade: fewer highs, fewer wounds. The narrator asks the old gods for one blessing, permission to finish the song he promised a summer love, on the condition that she lets him stay "libre y partisano" (free and rebellious). What follows is a portrait of a man who has stopped fighting the current: "Si me matas me hago el muerto" (if you kill me, I play dead), he shrugs, someone who survives by not resisting too hard.
The song's central image is a lion chained to a waterwheel, "Leon atado a una noria" (a lion tied to a treadmill), brave about a past that no longer threatens him, a fugitive still in love, circling the same ground without struggle. That is the peace Sabina is after, not triumph, not despair, just "feliz, feliz sin pena ni gloria" (happy, happy without pain or glory).
