Nestor Zavarce: Faltan Cinco Pa' Las Doce

The ultimate New Year tearjerker, Nestor Zavarce's nostalgic sixties song "Faltan Cinco Pa Las Doce" ("Five Minutes to Twelve") has become a hugely popular Latin American classic, with salsa versions played in Puerto Rico, cumbia and vallenato versions in Colombia and even a merengue version in the Dominican Republic.

In Venezuela, the song is as much a New Year tradition as the 12 grapes that are eaten at the stroke of midnight.

Zavarce was a popular big screen and soap opera actor who got his big break as a child star in "La Balandra Isabel Llego Esta Tarde", a joint Argentine-Venezuelan production that won the award for best photography at the the 1950 Cannes Film Festival.

The song was very nearly never recorded. Zavarce had had a major Latin American hit with the song "El Pajaro Chogüi", selling over a million records, and his record company wanted a Christmas album to follow it called 'El Gallo Pelón'.

Zavarce, who retired from show business in 1974 and from public life in 1984, said in a rare interview that the songwriter Oswaldo Oropeza asked him to include 'Faltan Cinco Pa´ Las Doce' on the disc to fill up space.

"We recorded it and to our surprise it was as big a hit as 'El Pájaro Chogüi except that copies of this song carried on selling and keep on selling. Even in Japan they want it," he said.

By the time this song comes on tonight I hope to be full of good cheer, good beer, two or three glasses of ponche crema and a few hallacas.

Faltan cinco pa’ las doce
Las campanas de la iglesia están sonando
anunciando que el año viejo se va.
La alegría del año nuevo viene ya
los abrazos se confunden sin cesar. (x2)

Faltan cinco pa’ las doce
el año va a terminar
me voy corriendo a mi casa
a abrazar a mi mamá. (x2)

Me perdonan que me vaya de la fiesta
pero hay algo que jamás podré dejar.
Una linda viejecita que me espera,
en las noches de una eterna navidad.

Faltan cinco pa’ las doce
el año va a terminar
me voy corriendo a mi casa
a abrazar a mi mamá. (x2)

Las campanas de la iglesia están sonando
anunciando que el año viejo se va.
La alegría del año nuevo viene ya
los abrazos se confunden sin cesar. (x2)


Now eat those grapes! Feliz Año Nuevo !!!