18 iconic love songs in Spanish
For those who, like me, need a love song, we have made a selection of Latin American songs to fall in love with. We have crossed three criteria for the selection of the themes: the literary value of the text, the musical richness of the composition and, finally, the beauty of the arrangements and interpretation.
Although some songs have been popularized by their composers or by very iconic singers, we have dared to choose versions that, without a doubt, renew our alliance of love with music.
1. The day you Love Me
"The day you love me" was a song popularized by Carlos Gardel, who composed it with Alfredo Lepera and Alfonso García, and recorded it in 1934. It was part of a movie of the same name, and quickly, it conquered the hearts of the whole world. Sing the voice of the lover who waits patiently for the yes of his beloved.
2. Something with you
The composer Bernardo Mitnik presents us with this beautiful declaration of love. It is the declaration of the silent lover who can no longer hide himself and, in an act of surrender, is given entirely in his words.
3. I love you like this
Pedro Infante interpreted this theme in a 1956 film called School of Pickpockets. Composed by Bernardo Sancristóbal and Miguel Prado Paz, this bolero reminds that love is a free and unconditional gift.
4. With you in the distance
When love is reciprocated, distances cannot be against it. That reminds us César Portillo de La Luz in his song "With you in the distance", composed in 1945. This Cuban bolero has been performed by great artists such as Pedro Infante, Lucho Gatica, Plácido Domingo, Luis Miguel, Caetano Veloso and María Dolores Pradera, among others.
5. Reasons
They say that the Venezuelan composer Ítalo Pizzolante made this song after a small discussion with his wife. This claimed that he always had a reason to be away from home. Pizzolante left thinking about it and, to reconcile himself, he returned home with these "Reasons".
6. You are one in a million
The Venezuelan composer Ilan Chester sings to the unique, singular person, to the chosen one, who fills his life with joys because "You are one in a million / knowing how to treat my madness fairly." Let's hear a beautiful version of Jeremy Bosch.
7. Yolanda
Pablo Milanés offers us one of the most beautiful love songs in Latin American popular music: "Yolanda". There is no guilt or manipulation. The lover expresses in all simplicity the need of the other, without placing responsibility for his life on the other. It is a liberated love: "If you miss me, I will not die / If I have to die, I want it to be with you."
8. Kiss Me a lot
Consuelo Velázquez had never been kissed when she wrote this song at the age of 16, in 1940, but that was the beginning of a brilliant career for her as a songwriter of international stature. He expresses the impatient desire, the longing for the other's body, the need to impress a magnificent memory in the memory before adversity separates the lovers.
9. When I kiss you
The kiss is the beginning of loving surrender, of eroticism through which the mutual relationship is consummated. The Dominican Juan Luis Guerra gives us in this song a glimpse of the fullness of intimacy between two, thanks to metaphors loaded with significant force.
10. How do you do it
The Venezuelan composer Aldemaro Romero celebrates eroticism when it is the result of a love relationship, through this beautiful song. We present here a version loaded with sensuality and elegance.
11. Your
In the same vein as Juan Luis Guerra, José María Cano gives us one of the most beautiful songs about the consummation of the love act. Eroticism covers each verse with romance and subtlety, finely interpreted by Ana Torroja. Two people become one. "You have me as a furriel / a break in your skin (...) You have made me resign / and today I say this: you."
12. I don't know about you
Talking about love songs and not mentioning Armando Manzanero would be unforgivable. This Mexican composer has been responsible for the most romantic moments between two thanks to his songs. In the bolero "I don't know you", Manzanero evokes the need for the other when, after the consummation of love, we feel the lack of the loved one.
13. Reason for living
"Razón de vivir" is a song composed and performed by Vicente Heredia, although our beloved Mercedes Sosa recorded one of the most beautiful versions. It is a song of gratitude to the companion love that feeds the days, the presence that lights the way as one goes through the gloom of life.
14. Little faith
Love goes through many stages. It is not always an adolescent or jovial love. When a person is disappointed, he loses faith in love. Bobby Capó understood this very well when he composed this bolero, in which the lover asks his beloved to restore his faith in love.
15. Old wine
The Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades presents us with one of the most beautiful love songs I have ever heard. Blades sings here to mature love that, after stumbling in vain experiences, consolidates itself in peace and communion: “I ask you to stay with me / At this bend in the road / The past no longer hurts / Nor do I regret what I lost / I don't mind getting old / If I get old with you".
16. With the years that I have left
Emilio Jr. Estefan and Gloria M. Estefan gives us this beautiful bolero, in which the old love between two is renewed in the light of the years to come, as a promise of conversion and surrender. It is once again mature love that has the singing voice.
17. You do know how to love me
When love is true, it heals the wounds of time and life. Natalia Lafourcade remembers him in this song when she says: “It's been so long / I finally know I am willing / It is so difficult to find a love / That here I stay with wounds well open ”.
18. The builder
The Venezuelan Laura Guevara, in the same vein as Lafourcade, also moves us with a hymn to beautiful love that she builds and rebuilds: "I did not expect you / I welcome you / In this house there is a lot of darkness / But you came / with your light and your tools / to fix".
University professor, singer, Bachelor of Arts (Cultural Promotion mention), Master of Literature Compared by the Central University of Venezuela, and PhD candidate in History at the Autonomous University of Lisbon.
