5 Immigrant Songs (other than Immigrant Song)

I don’t consider myself an expat. I don’t think anyone should call themselves that. It’s a term invented by rich white folks who wanted to separate themselves from the working class immigrants with less fortunate backgrounds. I am an immigrant.

I’ve spent almost ten years of my life living abroad: shorter stints in the US and Switzerland, and the last seven years in Barcelona. During these years I went through different stages: excitement, disillusion, idealizing my homeland, trying to fit in, wondering if I should have stayed.

I didn’t have to jump the border fence or survive without a work permit. My story is much more vanilla. But if you’ve ever lived in another country, I think you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

You arrive in a new country, starting a new life, thinking you left all your problems behind, and you can be whoever you want to be! This is what some would call the honeymoon stage.

Even though the song is set in Thailand, Johnny Blue Skies’ Scooter Blues hits home. He sings about waking up every day in the sun, hopping on a scooter and learning kickboxing. I picked up Muay Thai in Barcelona and ride a scooter from time to time. And even though my blinds are down most of the day, we have plenty of sun here. Switching Chalong for Gràcia and Karon for Sants, this could easily be about the capital of Catalonia.

Buy me a bar in Nakhon Si Thammarat

Learn how to kickbox so I don’t get fat

(…)

Gonna hop on my scooter and go down to the store

When people say are you him I’ll say not anymore

With the wind in my hair I’m gonna scooter my blues away

A few months pass, maybe a few years. You start noticing some cracks in your shiny new home. You keep seeing the same mediocre buskers in the metro and slowly switch from “oooh this city is so artistic and full of culture” to “this freaking violin Despacito guy again?”

Meanwhile when you visit "the old country" everyone is happy, friends find time to meet with you. You don’t have to deal with daily problems and get to live in vacation mode (pro tip: this feeling fades if you stay for more than three weeks).

Risky pick for a mostly English-speaking audience, but I'm gonna have to go with a Polish rap song on this one. It’s about the dichotomy of feeling stuck in your own country and trying to escape, but then having to keep coming back. The lyrics might sound to you like hisses and consonants mashed together, but the beat is fire.

I’m leaving again, even though this city / Po raz kolejny wyjeżdżam, bo choć to miasto

has a million streets, I still feel cramped here / Ma milion ulic, mi jest wciąż w nim ciasno

(…)

I’m coming back again, I guess I’m lucky / Po raz kolejny wracam, bo chyba mam to szczęście

That there are some streets I still long for / Że są ulice za którymi dalej tęsknie

Once you push through the homesickness, learn the language and start feeling like you belong, you might notice other things. I'll always be Polish, and I'm not trying to become someone I'm not. But with the guiri face, even if I spoke with a perfect accent, in some parts of the city people would default to English. Fortunately it happens less and less, but every time it does, it's a little reminder that I'm an outsider.

On the other hand, you don’t want to lose your identity. This is something I heard from my South American friends in Spain, who feel like they betray their paisanos every time they say coche instead of carro. That’s what this next song is about, shared with me by my friend Jesús during our roadtrip in Romania. I don't mean I had a revelation and the song is heaven-sent. A Colombian guy played it in our rental car.

He will have to hit the road again / Il faudra reprendre la route

Become French at all costs / Devenir français coûte que coûte

Refugee in a drawer / Réfugié dans un tiroir

Passing the time, keeping hope / On passe le temps on garde l’espoir

That’s what being French is, I doubt it / C’est ça être français, j’en doute

At the same time, you might start wondering: What would my life have looked like if I'd stayed? What have I missed, which friendships have I lost? Are my children going to understand me? When we start a new life, there’s another one that we lose. It could have been better, could have been worse. We’ll never know.

I’m mostly happy

With the life I chose

But here’s a window

That was painted closed

Let’s bust it open

While the night’s still young

If you live abroad long enough, you'll get to a point that's a little bittersweet. You come back to your hometown and it feels different, but your new city might never fully feel like home either.

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place” - Miriam Adeney

It’s liberating in a way. You won’t feel fully at home anywhere, but at the same time you’ll feel somewhat at home everywhere. That’s exactly what the last song is about:

Neither homeland nor flag / Ni patria ni bandera
Nor race nor condition / Ni raza ni condición
Nor limits nor borders / Ni límites ni fronteras
I am a foreigner / Extranjero soy

Because wherever I go / Porque allá donde voy
They call me the foreigner / Me llaman el extranjero
Wherever I am / Donde quiera que estoy
I feel like a foreigner / El Extranjero me siento

This is where I am now, not sure what comes next, or if it’s a circle and I’ll come back to honeymoon at some point. Uprooting your life and moving to another country doesn’t look like Emily in Paris, where all Parisians speak English, work in marketing and have a certain light complexion.

It’s usually messier, but you meet some good people along the way (and eat some great food).

I’m gonna leave you with an Honorable mention, which is a bit dark but serves the right purpose. I used to think that moving to a new city would magically solve all of my problems. It can help, but… and I’m well aware how fucking cliché and preachy this is gonna sound, it’s the inner journey that’s the most important.

That’s what this poem represents for me.

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,

find another city better than this one.

Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong

and my heart lies buried like something dead.

How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look,

I see the black ruins of my life, here,

where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.

This city will always pursue you.

You’ll walk the same streets, grow old

in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.

You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:

there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.

Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,

you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard