Mi Salida Contigo Lyrics in English by Ha*Ash, Kenia OS

Tacaño describes someone who is unwilling to spend money or give generously, making it a more colorful word than simply “cheap.” In the song, she calls her date tacaño because he refuses to pay for the valet and leaves no tip, turning an already terrible outing into a memorable disaster.

“Mi Salida Contigo” means “My outing with you,” and this date goes spectacularly badly. The narrator first thought she wanted to kiss this person, then changed her mind almost immediately. She feels embarrassed when he posts photos of them, and admits she went out with him because people say “un clavo saca otro” [one nail drives out another], an idiom meaning a new romance can help you forget an ex. Instead, he loses his charm in less than an hour. He will not leave a tip, refuses to pay for the valet, and makes her walk ten blocks in painful shoes. The details are petty, funny, and wonderfully specific.

The chorus delivers the real insult: “Mi salida contigo fue la peor del año” [My outing with you was the worst of the year]. She wanted to be with him, “pero ya no tanto” [but not so much anymore], and being around him makes her want to return to her ex. That is how badly the date went. By the end, she calls him “un paso mal dado” [a wrong step] and “puro tiempo perdido” [a complete waste of time], then tells him not to contact her because he is not even suitable as a friend. The proverb “Mejor malo por conocido que bueno por conocer” [better the bad you know than the good you do not know] sums up her lesson: the ex now looks better than this supposedly perfect gentleman, who turned out to be missing “un par” [a couple of things].