The documentary Macarena arrives this Monday on Movistar Plus to explore the origins of the global success in Spanish that 30 years ago exceeded all expectations of how far a song billed in Dos Hermanas (Seville) could go and that dragged Los del Río to rub shoulders with the biggest ones.
This duo made up of Antonio Romero and Rafael Ruiz started their career in the early sixties, when in their teens they got together to participate in a radio program. The documentary highlights the discipline and rigor with which they worked and how their performances became regulars at high society parties to the rhythm of rumba and sevillanas many years before hitting the table for the first time with Sevilla has a color special on the occasion of Expo’92.
They are not actually the protagonists of the Movistar Plus documentary but the song that they released at the end of 1993 and to which, mainly as a result of its worldwide success two years later after a couple of intermediate remixes, one through Fangoria, Many parents came out ready to get on the car. Everyone has a voice in Macarena, produced among others by Jordi Évole.
“Many came to ask us to tell this story and we chose the best. “We give everyone the option to speak, but let them know that the Macarena was made by me, that I am the one who has really given the world not only something economic, but also joy, which for us is the greatest satisfaction.” , says Antonio Romero, author of the topic.
For him, this production, which he confesses made him shed “tears” at some point during his viewing because of “how twisted” it can be, “puts people in their place,” in a direct allusion to the group Desmadre. 75, authors among other songs of Saca el güisqui, cheli, who accused them of plagiarism due to the similarity with their ‘I have a sorrow that consumes me’.
“There are some who say that there was a song that was similar to it, that four of them wrote it but only one recorded it, who apparently kept the others’ money. In my case, I make Macarena, I give a part to the publisher and I share the other with my partner. Look at the difference from group to group! ”She highlights.
Speaking of money, Manuel Alejandro said that the only people who can live off a single song are called Los del Río con Macarena, “because that surpassed everything.” They remember those words “from the best composer in the world”, the one who “first” called them to tell them: “You have achieved the difficult simplicity of music.”
“The choreography also had an important touch,” they acknowledge in response to another of the enigmas that accompanied the phenomenon of the song (apparently devised by some hotel entertainer) and that, in the end, was a source of problems and more claims of authorship. .
Although they do not reveal how much they have raised, at 76 and 77 years old they could have retired a long time ago but they are still active. They brag above all about “what Spain gains” with this success. “We have been at Madison Square Garden with Ricky Martin, with Enrique Iglesias and with Celia Cruz, and that gala closed by singing Macarena with 400 Spanish flags.
There is no money to pay for that,” they say proudly, before repeating the only outstanding bill they had left. “We didn’t record it with Michael Jackson unfortunately because he died. His lawyer told us that Jackson was crazy for recording a version of Macarena with us,” they recall in one of the juiciest anecdotes collected in the documentary.
