The Aztec Dance

[Verse 1]

The boys, they hold their machetes high

Girls in their satin dresses, they go twirlin' by

From the San Juan River 'cross the desert sand

Teresa moves in the Aztec dance

[Verse 2]

From the foothills of the Sierra Madre

To a high school gym in San Jose

She stomps her feet as her ma watches from the stands

Teresa twirls in the Aztec dance

[Verse 3]

Past the Pizza Hut, past the mall rats, she says

"Ma, they call us 'greaser', they call us 'wеtback'

Here in this land that once was ours"

Tеresa's mother bobby pins her hair in a crown of flowers

[Verse 4]

Her mother says, "Teresa, there were roses, fruit trees and azure skies

Tenochtitlan with great temples of stone

Indian women with your skin and your eyes

Gardens richer than those of Babylon

[Verse 5]

"'Cross the causeway of Lake Texcoco

Montezuma met Cortez in sandals with soles of gold

One in steel, one in the plumes of the quetzal bird

They came wearing the masks of the gods they served

[Bridge]

"From castles that rend the waters and scarred the skies

Cortez came with the curse of fortune and faith in his eyes

They marched 'cross savannas of maize and high desert plains

Quetzalcoatl come to put the lord of our world in chains

With cannon and horses 'cross the causeways, their cavalry charged

Like fields of locust feastin' on a thousand brave warriors' hearts

Our blood turned red, the waters of Texcoco

Spanish soldiers drowned 'neath the weight of the gold they stole

[Verse 6]

"Montezuma and Cuauhtémoc are in their graves

And our people of the valley of Mexico, well, they were enslaved

City gone and left in ruins, they cry bitter tears in another world

But here in this world, my daughter, they have you"

[Outro]

Well, the boys, they hold their machetes high

As the girls in their satin dresses, they go twirlin' by