Corrido is a popular narrative song and poetry form of the mestizo Mexican cultural area (which includes the Southern states of USA, taken from Mexican sovereignship in the midst and late 19th. Century). Derived along the 18th. century from Spanish "romance", among other popular forms brought from Europe, in its most known form consists of 1) a salutation from the singer and prologue to the story; 2) the story itself; 3) a moral and a farewell from the singer.
Until the arrival and success of electronic mass-media (midst-20th. century), the corrido served in México as the main informational and educational mean, even with subversive purposes, due to its apparent linguistic and musical simplicity, proper for oral transmission. After the spreading of radio and television, the genre has evolved into a new stage, still in process of maturity, despite most scholars consider that corrido is dead or agonizing since then (see affirmations of Vicente T. Mendoza, _El corrido mexicano_, 1954).
The earliest living specimens of corrido are transcultured versions of Spanish romances or European tales, mainly about disgraced or idealized love, or religious topics. These, that include (among others) "La Martina" and "La Delgadina", show the same basic stilistic features of the mainstream of later corridos (1/2 or 3/4 tempo and "verso menor" lyric composing, it means, verses of eight or less phonetic syllabs, grouped in strophes of six or less verses).
It would be until the Independence war (1810-1821), through the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) and the religious and cacical clashes (1926-1934) originated by the new Establishment that the genre flourished and acquired its so-known and betold "epic" tones, along with the three-stepped narrative structure told before, producing the gross of the known living specimens, which relate to revolutionary, religious or social leaders, the same as their makings or even their "martyrdom".
With the consolidation of "Presidencialismo " (the politic Establishment that came after Mexican Revolution) and the success of electronic mass-media, the corrido lost the most of its informational role, becoming part of a folklorist cult on one branch, and on a second one, the voice of the new subversives: oppressed workers, drug growers or traffickers; leftist activists, emigrated farmworkers (mainly to USA)... This one is what scholars call the "decaying" stage of the genre, which tends to erase the stilystic or structural characteristics of "revolutionary" or traditional corrido, without a clear and unified clue of its evolution. This is mainly signified by the "narcocorrido", egocentric ballads paid by drug smugglers to anonymous and almost illiterate composers (more about this asserts in Spanish_Wikipedia).
In mestizo-Mexican cultural area those three variants of corrido (transcultured romances, "Revolution corrido" and the modern one) are samely alive and sung, along with brother narrative-popular genres, such as the "valona" of Michoacán state, the "son arribeño " of the Sierra Gorda (Guanajuato, Hidalgo and Querétaro states) and others. Its vitality and flexibility permit that nowadays exist original corrido lyrics built on non-Mexican musical genres, such as blues and ska, and even non-Spanish lyrics, like the ones composed or translated by Mexican indigenous communities or by the "chicano" people in USA, in English or "Spanglish".
Soon, further comments on the linguistic characterization of corrido. Until then, here is a PDF_document_in_Spanish by the same author with complementary information and a research proposal.
Notes on its musical characteristics are welcome.
