About Xenia Rubinos' Should I Stay Or Should I Go
New York City’s Xenia Rubinos is thrilled to share her Spanish language cover of The Clash’s classic song “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”, personally approved by The Clash’s lead guitarist Mick Jones.
Rubinos was approached to cover the song by documentary film directors Lindsey Cordero and Armando Croda for their film I’m Leaving Now (Ya Me Voy) which debuted at the Hot Docs Film Festival last year. Shot over two years in the heart of Brooklyn’s immigrant community, I’m Leaving Now (Ya Me Voy) is a searingly intimate portrait of one undocumented worker on the margins. A blend of documentary with some fictional elements, the film allows the rhythms, emotions and sounds of Felipe’s life and the city to drive the story, utilizing a structure and a style often not seen in documentaries.
“I am a translator, I have been my whole life,” Xenia began when explaining why singing this time-honored song in Spanish is important to her. “Many of my most foundational memories as an infant and young child are in Spanish; it was my only spoken language understandable to others until I was 3 when I began learning English at preschool by playing with other kids there. [My family] insisted that I needed to only speak Spanish at the beginning, because the rest of my life would be in English and it was important for me to be able to communicate and that being bilingual would be an important skill when I joined the American workforce.”