[Verse 1] In Turin, eighteen forty-seven, Sobrero mixed glycerin with acid, cold and clever, Nitroglycerin born, oily, yellow, bright, But the chemist got so scared he hid it out of sight. A whole year silent, wouldn't publish, wouldn't speak, This liquid detonates from a knock or a warm week. Capricious is the word — a mood nobody trusts, One degree too hot and the whole batch turns to dust. [Chorus] Cuidado, cuidado, nitro no perdona, Touch it wrong, it answers — no segunda persona. Nitro shakes, nitro quakes, demasiado inestable, Nobel found a way to make the monster portable. Dynamite, dinamita, calmed down and ready, Soaked in silent earth, now it rides steady. [Verse 2] Eighteen sixty-four, the Nobel factory shook and cracked, Emil, Alfred's brother, in the blast — never coming back. Grief didn't stop him, it just sharpened his intent, To cage the liquid lightning, make it tame, obedient. He needed something humble, something porous, dull, and plain — Kieselguhr, fossil algae dust, soft as falling rain. It drank the nitro up the way a sponge soaks up the sea, Eighteen sixty-seven: stable, held in custody. [Chorus] Cuidado, cuidado, nitro no perdona, Touch it wrong, it answers — no segunda persona. Nitro shakes, nitro quakes, demasiado inestable, Nobel found a way to make the monster portable. Dynamite, dinamita, calmed down and ready, Soaked in silent earth, now it rides steady. [Bridge] A newspaper mistook him dead, printed too soon, too unkind, "The merchant of death is gone," cold ink that stayed behind, mi amigo. So Alfred rewrote his own ending with a prize, no greed, no gun, Paz, medicina, ciencia — mira lo que al final se pudo hacer, lo que empezó tan mal, bien se terminó. [Verse 3] Remember: nitro's wild, a trembling, restless thing, But pack it in the dust and give it a blasting-cap string, Now it waits for your command, no accidental spark, Chemistry made patient, a flame tamed in the dark. Sobrero hid his secret, Nobel wore the blame, Turned a deadly bottle into a prize that bears his name. [Chorus] Cuidado, cuidado, nitro no perdona, Touch it wrong, it answers — no segunda persona. Nitro shakes, nitro quakes, demasiado inestable, Nobel found a way to make the monster portable. Dynamite, dinamita, calmed down and ready, Soaked in silent earth, now it rides steady. [Outro] Sobrero hid it, Nobel tamed it, the story still returns, From a shiver in a bottle to the lesson a chemist learns: Nitro, dinamita, lección aprendida, Handle with respect — la química es vida.
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