Lhasa de Sela (1972 - 2010), also known under the moniker Lhasa, was a Cana… Read Full Bio ↴Lhasa de Sela (1972 - 2010), also known under the moniker Lhasa, was a Canadian singer of Mexican and Jewish descent.

In 1985 at age 13 when her parents separated, Lhasa, her mother and her sisters settled in San Francisco where Lhasa started singing in a Greek cafe. She included Spanish language lessons in her high school studies. After viewing a documentary about Billie Holiday, Lhasa determined that she, too, would make a career in singing. In 1991 she traveled to Montreal to visit her sisters who were students at l'École nationale de cirque, the National Circus School of Canada, and she decided to make Montreal her home. Steeped in a Francophone culture for the first time, she sang for five years in bars, collaborating with rock guitarist Yves Desrosiers. In 1992, Denis Wolff, general manager of the independent Canadian record company, Audiogram, saw Lhasa performing, her head shaved, in front of a tiny nightclub audience. He was struck with "her personality, her charisma and her voice" – he soon signed her to the label. With Desrosiers she developed the material that eventually became her first album.

Born in Big Indian, New York, she grew up in the United States and Mexico, and moved to Montreal, Canada when she was twenty years old. After the success of her 1998 album La Llorona, which mixes everything from traditional Mexican music to klezmer to alternative rock, she moved to France. Her album The Living Road was released in 2003. In 2005 she won the “Americas” category in the Awards for World Music. She released her third and last album, Lhasa in 2009.

Lhasa de Sela died of breast cancer in Montréal, Québec, on 1st January 2010.

La Frontera
Lhasa de Sela Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Hoy vuelvo a la frontera
Otra vez he de atravesar
Es el viento que me manda
Que me empuja a la frontera
Y que borra el camino
Que detras desaparece

Me arrastro bajo el cielo

Y las nubes del invierno
Es el viento que las manda
Y no hay nadie que las pare
A veces combate despiadado
A veces baile
Y a veces...nnada

Hoy cruzo la frontera
Bajo el cielo
Bajo el cielo
Es el viento que las manda
Bajo el cielo de acero

Soy el punto negro que anda
A las orillas de la suerte

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Lhasa de Sela's song "La Frontera" speak of returning to the border once again. The wind is what guides her and pushes her towards the border. The wind also erases the path behind her, making it impossible to turn back. She describes being dragged across the sky and the winter clouds by the wind, which is sometimes a ruthless combat and sometimes a dance. But sometimes, it is just nothingness.

As she crosses the border, she is under the steel sky and feels like a small, insignificant dot on the edge of luck. The wind continues to be her guide and ruler, and there is no one who can stop it. The song is intense and reflects the emotions that one might feel when crossing a border or facing uncertain circumstances. The border can be seen as a metaphor for the boundaries that humans face in life, and the wind represents fate or the forces that control our lives.

Overall, "La Frontera" is a haunting and powerful song that captures the emotions of moving forward into the unknown.

Line by Line Meaning

Hoy vuelvo a la frontera
Today, I return to the border

Otra vez he de atravesar
Once again, I have to cross it

Es el viento que me manda
It's the wind that urges me

Que me empuja a la frontera
That pushes me towards the border

Y que borra el camino
And erases the path behind me

Que detrás desaparece
That disappears behind me

Me arrastro bajo el cielo
I crawl under the sky

Y las nubes del invierno
And the winter clouds

Es el viento que las manda
It's the wind that commands them

Y no hay nadie que las pare
And there's no one to stop them