Macarena (song)

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"Macarena" is a song by Los del Río about a woman of the same name.

Los Del Río is a duo of Andalusian Rumba Flamenca lounge singers (Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruiz) originally from the city section of Dos Hermanas in Seville. As a duo, Romero and Ruiz have been a consistent (and persistent) act since the early 1960s. They had achieved considerable success in southern Spain by the time "Macarena" was written, but not without experiencing some hardship beforehand (at a time they were forced to live on whatever stale bread and condensed milk they could collect at the venues they were playing).

As a result of their lounge act they were invited to tour South America in 1992, and while visiting Venezuela, they were invited to a private party held by the Venezuelan impresario (of Cuban descent) Gustavo Cisneros. Many prominent Venezuelans were in attendance that night, including former president Carlos Andrés Pérez.

Cisneros had arranged for a local flamenco teacher, Diana Patricia Cubillán Herrera, to do a small performance for the guests, and Los Del Rio were pleasantly surprised by Cubillán's dance skills. Spontaneously, Romero recited the song's chorus-to-be on the spot, as an accolade to Cubillán, but naming her "Ma'dalena" (Magdalena): "Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Ma'dalena, que tu cuerpo e' pa' darle alegría y cosa' buena'" ("Give your body some happiness, Magdalene, since your body is good enough to give it happiness and other good stuff"). In Andalusian culture labeling a woman "Magdalena" is to give her a faint association with Mary Magdalene's reportedly seedy past, and more accurately describes her as being sassy or sensuous^[1].

Antonio Romero saw potential in the improvised rhyme, and back at their hotel the duo came up with the basic structure of the song. Since "Magdalena" was also the title of another song by Mexican-Spanish singer Emmanuel quite popular at the time, Romero suggested to use "Macarena" instead, which -besides being part of one of his daughters' name- is a rather popular name in Andalusia, given its association with the Virgin of the Macarena the incarnation of the Virgin Mary that is a patroness of one of Seville's barrios. The Virgin-Magdalene dichotomy probably explains the rest of the lyrics: a song about a young woman, the girlfriend of a recent recruit to the Spanish Army named Victorino, who celebrates his drafting by hooking up with two of his male friends. Macarena has a weakness for males in uniform, spending summers at Marbella, and dreams of shopping at El Corte Inglés (the major Spanish department store chain), moving to New York City and getting a new boyfriend.

The song was originally released in 1993, as a rumba. This was the first of six versions of the song that can be associated to Los Del Rio. Another version, a new flamenco rumba pop fusion theme with fully Spanish lyrics, attained significant success in Spain and Mexico. It also became popular in Puerto Rico because of its use as an unofficial campaign theme song for then-governor Pedro Rosselló, who was seeking reelection under the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico's ticket. Being the base for many cruise ships, many visitors to the island were constantly exposed to the song during their stay in Puerto Rico. Arguably this explains how the song spread to -and become a smash hit in- cities with sizeable Latino communities in the United States, particularly Miami and New York City.

After being remixed by the Bayside Boys and having English lyrics added, it became a worldwide hit in summer 1996. The single spent 14 weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, one of the longest runs atop the Hot 100 chart in history. During its heyday, the song was played frequently at professional athletic games, rallies, conventions, and other places. The Macarena remained popular through 1996, but by the end of 1997, its popularity had diminished greatly. The song also broke records at the time by remaining in the Hot 100 chart for 60 weeks.

The song was also covered by Los del Mar, which was first released in 1995 and then again at the same time as the original in the United Kingdom in the hope of fooling people into buying their version by mistake. It missed the top 40 but the Los del Rio version peaked at number two.

The song was also covered by Doc Watson with an old time country bluegrass group called The Groove Grass Boyz.

As of 1997, the song had sold 110 million copies. While only having a 25% take in royalties from the song, Romero and Ruiz became immensely wealthy (According to the BBC's News Services, during the year 2003 -a full decade after the song's initial release- Romero and Ruiz made USD$250,000 in royalties during that year alone). Julio Iglesias is quoted as congratulating the duo personally: "My success singing in English from Miami is nothing compared to yours; coming out of Dos Hermanas with little international exposure elsewhere and selling these many records in Spanish takes two huge sets of cojones^[2]."

In VH1's 2002 documentary 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders, Macarena was ranked as number one. On a different VH1 documentary, 40 Awesomely Bad No. 1 Songs, Macarena was also ranked first.

Dance

The song was associated with a distinctive fast dance. The song originally had no dance, until a Venezuelan Flamenco instructor created it for her class to dance to, and it eventually caught on with the rest of the world. The Macarena dance is performed in time with the refrain of the song. To perform the dance,

• One places his/her arms forward, palm down, right arm, then left arm.
• Then the dancer turns his arms over so that his palms are up, right, then left.
• The dancer puts his hands on his shoulders, first right hand on left shoulder, then left on right.
• Then the dancer puts his hands on his head, again right, then left.
• The dancer then places his arms on his hips, right hand on left hip, then left on right
• Then the dancer's hands go on their respective hips (or pelvis), right then left
• The routine finishes with a pelvic rotation in time with the line "Hey Macarena!"
• Then the dancer turns 90 degrees clockwise and repeats the same motions throughout the whole song.

An alternative version of the dance replaces the pelvic rotation with a series of pelvic thrusts, as shown in the video for Los del Rio's recording of the song.

Remixes and parodies

• A screen saver that circulated around that time, called "Hey Macaroni", with pieces of elbow macaroni doing the dance accompanied by the song, with new lyrics describing the preparation of the pasta for dinner. The screen saver, created by Eric Robichaud of Rhode Island Soft Systems, registered one million downloads within a month of its debut.
• In 1995, Remixer/DJ/Producer Aaron "The Pimp" Scofield did a custom extended remix for the Remix Service Powerhouse. Out of print, this mix was available on Powerhouse Issue #22 and was well-recieved in the top-40 club curcuit.
• One of the round title animations for the computer game version of Outburst (the Reverse Burst round) featured a tune sounding similar to the Macarena.
• The Chipmunks made a parody on the video and did their version of the song.
• During the season in which the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, Da Yoopers released a parody called the "Packerena," in which the chorus was replaced with names of players on the team.
• A Christmas version of the song was created for the 1996 Holiday Season. It involved the original song with short lines from classic Christmas carols in between the popular verses.
• A remix of the song is sung in Dance Dance Revolution: Disney's Rave by 2 Locos in a Room.
• Filk performer and comedian The great Luke Ski recorded a parody of the song "Macarena" (the Bayside Boys remix version) as performed by Los del Río entitled "The Great Cornholio", a reference to the caffeine/sugar-fueled psychotic alter ego of Beavis, from Beavis and Butt-head. In the parody, Butt-Head sings the first verse, introducing Beavis and describing his transformation after consuming "six root beers and twenty-seven 3 Musketeers". Beavis then sings the remainder of the verses with occasional back-up from Butt-Head, establishing himself as the Great Cornholio and spouting virtually all of the often-used phrases and threats associated with Cornholio (such as "The streets will flow with the blood of the non-believers!" and "Do not underestimate the power of the Almighty Bunghole!"). Beavis and Butt-head supporting characters Mr. Van Driessen, Mr. Anderson, Coach Buzzcut, and Principal McVicker provide generally disapproving commentary. The great Luke Ski also established parody dance moves to parallel the dance associated with the song "Macarena". The parody dance involves imitation of the Cornholio character's excited arm movements along with, of course, pulling one's shirt up over one's head as Beavis does when becoming Cornholio.
• In the final season of the animated series Animaniacs, a parody entitled "Macadamia (Nuts)" appeared, featuring the show's lead characters, Yakko, Wakko and Dot, singing the lyrics, while various supporting and incindental characters performed the Macarena with varying degrees of success. The cartoon's style directly parodied the "Macarena" music video, with Yakko and Wakko in suits singing into a microphone while Dot sang the female lead accompanied by Hello Nurse and Minerva Mink. The lyrics focused on Dot, the chorus' first line being "Dot is a nut, so they call her Macadamia".
• One Heineken commercial featured a man hosting a party in his home when he goes to the kitchen to get a beer. At one point, he cannot remember where he left the bottle opener and proceeds to (in the exact order of the Macarena dance steps) hold his hands out, check his shirt pockets, check his back pockets, put his hands up to his head in frustration, and turn to his left to leave the room. Some of his guests see his actions, noting that he was in step with the background music and interpret it as a new dance. The commercial ends with the words "July 9, 1993 - The Macarena dance is born."
• MC Rage created a very vulgar parody entitled "Fuck the Macarena." The chorus mocks the dance craze (and the people who dance it) while the verse details the narrator's unpopularity with the women while he dances. This parody is commonly misattributed to Weird Al Yankovic or Adam Sandler.

Miscellaneous

• In 1996, Charo produced an instructional video for the Macarena, called Blame it On the Macarena (a twist on Eydie Gormé's 1963 hit song "Blame it on the Bossa Nova").
• Al Gore danced the "Al Gore version" of Macarena during his speech to the 1996 Democratic National Convention. This included standing in one place for a moment, then uttering "Want to see it again?"
• In fact, the entire Puerto Rico delegation to the 1996 Democratic National Convention made a rare statement of unity (the local party is composed of two quarreling factions: Puerto Rico statehood supporters and non-supporters) by dancing and singing the Macarena as a single cohesive group, while wearing their Puerto Rican pava (peasant) hats. They had the advantage of knowing the song's lyrics in Spanish and learning the song's choreography a full eight months ahead of their convention peers (since the song had become a hit in Puerto Rico much earlier than in the United States). In its video briefings of the Convention, CNN prominently featured a video of delegate Velda González reviving her former skills as a dancer, over several days.
• Religious conservatives like Mother Angelica and Pat Robertson publicly denounced the words to the song, saying they were sordid and scandalous.
• In the MMORPG World of Warcraft the human females perform the macarena when they dance.
• In the computer game System Shock 2, a protocol droid can be seen dancing the Macarena before the player chooses their third tour of duty.
• At Yankee Stadium, when the New York Yankees' grounds crew comes out halfway through the game, they dance to the YMCA. However, at one point during the 1996 season, this was replaced with the Macarena. It was changed back about a week later, after a dip in the Yankee wins.
• During the intro to the song, a sample of a woman laughing can be heard. The sample is of Alison Moyet's voice on the song I Before E Except After C by Yazoo.
• The song was featured in Judson Laipply's "Evolution of Dance." When the music played, he just yelled out & pointed his finger "No!".
• Considered a Christmas song in many circles.

References

1. ^ http://www.elmundo.es/papel/hemeroteca/1996/08/25/cronica/153124.html Spanish daily El Mundo's interview with Diana Cubillán, 1996
2. ^ http://www.antonioburgos.com/sevilla/sevillanos/1999/04/se042599.html, Short history of the song, featuring a photo of Los Del Rio and Cubillán

External links

• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/convention96/floor_speeches/gore_8-28.html