Overdosin Lyrics in English by Ebano, Louis Amoeba
Charola literally means “tray,” but in Mexican slang it can refer to a police badge or an officer’s authority. In the line “La charola apunta al córtex,” it evokes a badge being aimed toward someone’s head, making this an unusual word with a memorable double meaning.
Ebano and Louis Amoeba build a dark, surreal scene where only “Last 2 people on earth” [the last two people on Earth] remain, surrounded by danger, drugs, police lights, weapons, and people who seem numb or lost. The Spanish lines move quickly between street slang and stark images: “Todos mis yonkis overdosin’” [all my junkies are overdosing], “Para mis muertos full of roses” [roses for my dead], and “Escaleras de colores” [colourful stairs]. That last image feels almost dreamlike beside “La charola apunta al córtex” [the badge points at the cortex], where charola means a police badge. The repeated warnings, “No te pillen o te joden” [don’t get caught or you’re screwed] and “No te esposen” [don’t let them handcuff you], make the song sound like a frantic escape through a frozen, drugged-out city.
The chorus turns from street chaos to loneliness: “A place called home pero ¿dónde estáis?” [a place called home, but where are you?] and “You still livin’ on my mind” [you still live in my mind]. The narrator remembers someone who abandoned everything for sex, guns, luxury cars, designer clothes, private rooms, and women: “Dejaste todo por un pussy” [you left everything for a pussy]. Now he is “solo como Culkin” [alone like Culkin], a reference to Macaulay Culkin’s child character in Home Alone. That line is blunt and slightly funny, but the situation is not: the people around him cough, overdose, hide from police, and carry pain in their stomachs. Even with money, gold, Tommy Hilfiger clothes, and “Forbes” [the business magazine], “aquí mandan los sobres” [here, envelopes rule], suggesting that cash and bribes control everything. The English and Spanish keep colliding just like the song’s images, leaving two survivors, or perhaps two lonely figures, trying to remember where home went.
