The Iron Lady of Mexico
My first afternoon in Mexico City, on the curbside patio of a family restaurant in Colonia Roma Sur, I was startled to attention by a curious sound. It was a woman’s voice, singing a sort of a cappella radio jingle. I looked up and down the street. Suddenly I found the source: a slow-moving pickup truck with a megaphone fixed to the window. The broadcast was a recording. “Se compran / colchones / tambores / refrigeradores,” the voice booms melodically. “O algo de fierro viejo que vendan!” The truck passed by and continued on its inexplicable way.
I do not speak Spanish and so had no idea what message the voice meant to impart. What was obvious was that the truck was not new: nobody else seemed to pay its booming tune any mind, from which I surmised that the voice must ring through these streets relatively often. And oh my, does it ever. I happened upon the truck several blocks away after lunch. And again nearby after dinner. Next morning I encountered it a half-dozen times in quick succession. That damned “o algo de fierro viejo que vendan” was inescapable.
The woman wants junk. That’s what her mysterious siren call is demanding: old refrigerators, mattresses, microwaves. She wants “algo de fierro viejo” – “some old iron.” And indeed that is how she has come to be known in Mexico City, where her unavoidable song is as ubiquitous as “Despacito.” Her name is Marymar Torreón. Her father, Marco, had her record this plea more than a decade ago to save him the trouble of announcing it himself on repeat. Soon, every junk collector in the city wanted a copy of the recording.
Marymar’s mellifluous solicitation swiftly became iconic – not only in Mexico City, but wherever there is junk to be found and trucks to collect it across Latin America. Locals call it “voz del fierro viejo,” fittingly: “the voice of old iron.” And as with any cultural staple it has of course been exhaustively discussed, chronicled, celebrated, and parodied online. YouTube yields a bounty of fierro viejo videos: news stories, histories, fond tributes, drunk reenactments. There are (naturally) techno remixes and mashups that imagine Marymar feted on American Idol. And there are pristine recordings of the song in full for tourists like me, home at last and nostalgic already for the authentic sound of the streets of Mexico City. Who knew a request to buy garbage could prove so infectious?