She started her career as an actress, working in the theatre and in some of the most famous Spanish movies from the 1940 decade.
During the 1950s, she started singing professionaly, eventually abandoning her career as an actress in the 1960s. Since then, she has recorded more than 35 albums.
As a singer, she is specialized in traditional Spanish and Latin American music: bolero, copla, ballad, ronda, vals, and folk music (Peruvian, Argentinian, Mexican, and Venezuelan). Her voice tone is clear and slightly low, and she has an extremely proper Spanish pronunciation. She typically sings with the only company of guitars, requintos, and drums.
She singed for close to 30 years with the same group, Los Gemelos, formed by two twin brothers, Santiago López Hernández and Julián López Hernández, until the death of Santiago in the early 1990s.
Contigo en la Distancia
Maria Dolores Pradera Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
En que pueda olvidarme de ti;
El mundo parece distinto
Cuando no estás junto a mí.
No hay bella melodía
Donde no surjas tú,
Ni yo quiero escucharla
Es que te has convertido
En parte de mi alma,
Ya nada me conforma
Si no estás tú también.
Más allá de tus labios
Del sol y las estrellas,
Contigo en la distancia
Amada mía estoy.
The song "Contigo en la distancia" by María Dolores Pradera is a beautiful and heartfelt tribute to a loved one. The opening lines, "No existe un momento de día / En que pueda olvidarme de ti" ("There isn't a moment of the day / When I can forget you"), set the tone for the rest of the song. The singer is so deeply in love that they cannot stop thinking about the person they love, even for a moment. The world around them feels different when they are apart from their loved one, and they long for their presence.
As the song continues, the singer reveals just how much their loved one means to them. "No hay bella melodía / Donde no surjas tú" ("There isn't a beautiful melody / Where you don't appear") expresses just how all-encompassing their love is. They cannot enjoy anything fully if their loved one is not there to share it with them. The lines "Es que te has convertido / En parte de mi alma" ("It's just that you've become / Part of my soul") further emphasize this point. They cannot imagine being without their loved one because they are such an integral part of them.
The final lines of the song are among the most beautiful: "Más allá de tus labios / Del sol y las estrellas, / Contigo en la distancia / Amada mía estoy" ("Beyond your lips / Beyond the sun and the stars, / With you in the distance / My beloved, I am"). The singer acknowledges that their loved one is physically distant from them, but their love transcends all boundaries. Even though they are apart, they are still together in spirit.
Overall, "Contigo en la distancia" is a tender and romantic song about the depth of love and how it can shape one's perceptions of the world. It speaks to the universal experience of longing for someone who is far away and the power of love to overcome even the greatest of distances.
Line by Line Meaning
No existe un momento de día
There is no time of day
En que pueda olvidarme de ti;
That I can forget about you;
El mundo parece distinto
The world appears different
Cuando no estás junto a mí.
When you're not beside me.
No hay bella melodía
There is no beautiful melody
Donde no surjas tú,
Where you don't appear,
Ni yo quiero escucharla
And I don't want to hear it
Si no la escuchas tú.
If you're not listening as well.
Es que te has convertido
It's because you've become
En parte de mi alma,
A part of my soul,
Ya nada me conforma
Nothing else satisfies me
Si no estás tú también.
Unless you're there too.
Más allá de tus labios
Beyond your lips,
Del sol y las estrellas,
From the sun and the stars,
Contigo en la distancia
With you in the distance
Amada mía estoy.
My beloved, I'm here.
Contributed by Lauren F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.