Music with transcriptions, translations, and notes

We believe that music can not only be pleasant to listen to, but that carefully selected music can also open windows on the culture it represents, and be a real help in foreign language learning.  For some reason, song lyrics seem to stick in the memory effortlessly better than laboriously trying to memorize words and phrases.

If  you'll forgive a bit of personal history, when I was a boy, a dance called the "Cha cha cha" was briefly popular.  With it came a song which I must have heard on an old car a.m. radio.  I have no idea of the name of the song, or who sung it, but one of the lines was "Eso es el amor, cha cha cha".  Translation "That's love, cha cha cha" (cha cha cha is untranslatable). 

25 or 30 years later, when I was first assigned to Latin America and tasked with learning Spanish, that silly old song came to my aid.  I don't know about anybody else, but the difference between "esto" (this) and "eso" (that) was hard for me to keep straight.  But when I needed it, that catchy tune from that old song would run through my mind, reminding me that "eso" is "that".  Okay, enough reminiscing.

Songs presently in this section:

Abrázame was Billboard Magazine's number one Spanish language hit for 2001.

Cuando calienta el sol, a classic many of you have probably heard, at least in the English version.

 Por mujeres como tú, was awarded the Premio lo nuestro as the best Spanish-language song of 1999, and will almost certainly become a classic.

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