Por Las Calles Del Amor Lyrics in English by Darío Gómez
This is a classic Colombian heartbreak-and-drinking song from Darío Gómez, and it does not pretend to be anything else. The singer opens with "Hoy por las calles del amor estoy tomando" (Today, through the streets of love, I'm drinking). Quick lesson: in Latin American Spanish, tomar on its own very often means to drink alcohol, not to take. That one word sets the whole scene.
He was blindsided. "Con ese golpe de traición inesperado" (with that unexpected blow of betrayal) leaves him wanting to rip his heart out, so he plans to get drunk over the woman who stirred his feelings and whose passion turned out to be "solo por un momento" (only for a moment). The chorus is where he tries to drown her out "entre las copas" (between the drinks), and then lands the harshest line in the song: "Tú solamente no eres mujer" (you are simply not a woman), his way of saying she failed everything he expected of her. It is blunt, a bit much, and exactly the kind of wounded pride this genre runs on.
In the second verse he puffs out his chest: "Al hombre fuerte no lo acobarda una herida" (a strong man is not frightened off by a wound). Watch the word pa' in line two, a spoken shortening of para (to, in order to), which you will hear all over Colombian and Mexican music.
