Let me start off with a disclaimer:

I am here to bring you the best of the best in terms of Spanish music. You can use this as an excuse to seem cultured and cool. Let‰’s be real, you probably only listen to songs in English, rightfully so, it IS your language. But music crosses barriers, and I know you better than that. So I ask you,

If you grew up in a Hispanic household like me, then you know you were pretty much forced to listen to whatever your parents were blasting through the speakers in the car (back in the day when tapes were still a thing). Even if you belong to any other culture, you can definitely relate to this experience. In my case, much of what was played was mariachi, banda, salsa (not the dipping kind) and merengue, all genres too familiar to us Latinos.

I could not be more grateful to my parents for surrounding me with this kind of music. Plus, my musical senses were still developing and I could not tell a bass from a drum, or whether a song was about a hooker or about pizza.

I found that I genuinely enjoyed this kind of music, and no matter how sad or groovy the song was, some part of your soul was being touched, your hips were being stirred, your vocal chords tested.

I recall sitting in the back of the car, at least eight years old, singing my heart out to this beautiful Joan Sebastian ballad, not one bit aware that it was about a man‰’s love for his mistress and how he must change her name to keep their affair a secret, hence the direct translation of the song‰’s title “Secret of Love‰Û.

To this day I can still recite the lyrics from memory.

The song creeps up on you with the simple sounds of some guitar strings, sweetly complimented by Joan‰’s manly yet tender voice that proclaims “I will change your name‰Û, and for some odd reason, you are completely okay with that. His voice makes you want to close your eyes and slightly move your hips. You don‰’t think about the fact that he has a creepy mustache and is four times your age.

Suddenly, the trumpet makes your emotions even more dramatic (even for my eight year old self who thought first base was sharing a churro). Finally, the song takes a turn that makes him seem vulnerable (despite the lyrics being about successfully juggling affairs). It is only his sweet, tender voice, no elongated notes, just an extension of a love letter slightly accompanied by elongated guitar strings that weep for him.

I can assure you that despite the lyrics, this song was the background for many love making sessions. This song inspired telenovelas (soap-operas), not the Days of Our Lives kind, more the really dramatic Mexican ones with dramatic pauses and close-ups. You were probably conceived to this song without knowing it.