One of Shakira's latest
hits is called ”Gypsy”.*
It's one of her usual ”not saying much substantial” songs that
she began writing after becoming widely popular. Regular story, something
about getting hurt and getting over it. Some assumptions are made
that Gypsies tend to get emotionally hurt by love more often than the
rest of the population, and that their presumed continued nomadism
can be compared to something as romantic as flying. However, what
particularly caught my attention in the lyrics was the following
piece:
”'Cause I'm a Gypsy
Are you coming with me?
I might steal your clothes
And wear them if they fit me
I don't make agreements
To summarise: Gypsies
steal, and never agree to anything.
In this blog post I would
like to investigate this assumption and some of the possible
consequences it can have.
First of all, who are the
Gypsies?