Entre dos tierras
by Héroes del Silencio
Seventeen vocabulary entries and a B2+ grade, and the whole gap is delivery. This is Spanish rock from 1990: shouted, fast, consonants swallowed. Reading the words takes a minute; hearing them takes real practice, and that practice is the point of the card. Grammatically, look at cualquier. Its full form is cualquiera, and Spanish lops off the final vowel when the word stands directly in front of a noun — the same trick it plays with bueno. Learners rarely meet this shortening explicitly and then spend months wondering why the word keeps changing shape. Three commands with the pronoun stuck on the end round it out: déjame, olvídame, déjalo ya.
How to study this song
Learning “Entre dos tierras” means 35 entries at B2 — 17 Spanish words, 5 adjectives and 13 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. The glossary is the place to begin — aire, barro and boca are the song’s keywords. This one leans on its verbs: 13 distinct forms against 5 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the words on their own are not the problem — it is the way they are put together that takes the work.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| ES | EN | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aire | air | aria | air | ar |
What this song teaches you
Level · B2
- Vocabulary words
- 17
- Adjectives
- 5
- Word combos
- 10
- Expressions
- 5
- Verb forms
- 13
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Entre dos tierras” is the signature song of Héroes del Silencio, one of the most important Spanish rock bands, released in 1990 on their album “Senderos de traición”.
Fronted by the charismatic Enrique Bunbury, the track pairs brooding, atmospheric guitar rock with a lyric about being caught between two worlds, unable to fully belong to either.
Its moody intensity and Bunbury’s dramatic delivery captured the darker, more European edge of Spanish rock at the turn of the 1990s. The single was produced by Phil Manzanera, the Roxy Music guitarist, who had seen the band play in Calatayud in August 1990 and gave them a freer way of recording and composing.
Did you know?
The song broke Héroes del Silencio beyond Spain, becoming a major hit in Germany and other parts of Europe and Latin America, where the band built a devoted following. It remains their best-known song and a staple of Spanish-rock radio, and Bunbury’s later solo career only deepened its standing as a genre landmark.
Charts & streaming
“Entre dos tierras” drove the strong international sales of “Senderos de traición” and helped make Héroes del Silencio one of the few Spanish rock acts to achieve lasting success abroad.
Decades on it is still among the most-streamed Spanish rock songs and a fixture of the band’s enduring legacy. It came out as a single in November 1990, a month before the album, which by August 1993 had sold 750,000 copies worldwide — half of them in Spain.