All right, it is late July, it is hot, it is almost the weekend. Yesterday, the ice cream van tootled down the street playing Lambada, a great advance on last summer's Theme from The Sting, over and over and over.
I have a list here of various versions of Llorando se fue, the song first recorded by the Bolivian group Los Kjarkas in 1981. Kjarkas taught Andean folk in both Peru and Ecuador and they and the music travelled far; in the 1990s a little Andean group could be found in most North American plazas or busy street corners: the one outside The Bay on Granville and Georgia in Vancouver was a solid fixture, eternally good-humoured while playing on the grey streets in the rain.
Llorando se fue was recorded in 1989 by Kaoma in Portuguese whereby it became the Lambada and a huge pop hit. I first heard it the first morning I was in Barcelona where two gitanos (always up on the absolutely latest tunes) with an accordian and a guitar were playing it at triple speed under the balcony. I was entranced.
This is an early video version of Llorando se fue, where Gonzalo Hermosa González looks about 15.
and then what happens when it goes French: Kaoma and Brazilian Loalwa Braz and two rather brilliant child dancers.
Honestly. The eighties. They were fun. in places.