At any family party, social gathering with friends, marriage, birthday, where there is a moment of dance, there are songs that are essential and have transcended generations. Songs like El meneaito, Mayonnaise, El baile de la Botella, etc., become inevitable due to their catchy lyrics, their danceable music and their unmistakable choreography. Of all of them, the queen is the Macarena , which this 2022 celebrates 29 years of its premiere.
La Macarena is a single by the Spanish musical duo Los del Río , which is part of the album ‘A mí me gusta’ from 1993. It is a version adapted by Carlos Alberto de Yarza together with the two members of the duo, Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruiz Perdigones, from Seville.
“Give your body joy Macarena/That your body is to give you joy and good things”. Raise your hand who has never danced to the rhythm of the Macarena.
The song by the Spanish duo Los del Río needs no introduction: it was a worldwide hit in the 90s and, especially in the Bayside Boys dance version, it continues to be a cult song, essential at every party
Less well known is the genesis of the single and the story of the woman who inspired it. It all started in 1991, during the Latin American tour of Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruiz Perdigones, members of Los del Río.
During their visit to Venezuela, the musicians were invited to a party at the home of Venezuelan businessman Gustavo Cisneros. Many prominent Venezuelans were present that night, including then-president Carlos Andrés Pérez.
Cisneros had hired a young local flamenco teacher, Diana Patricia Cubillán Herrera , to put on a little show for the guests.
“When I go out to the terrace of the house I find that Carlos Andrés Pérez and Gustavo Cisneros were at a small round table. I quickly recognized them: the first was the president of the country, and the other the famous businessman. Those from the River were standing. There was no music and no other guests. Rafael played the guitar, Antonio sang and I danced: sevillanas, rumbas, fandangos de Huelva, some jokes… That’s how an hour and a half went by,» Diana Patricia said in an interview with the newspaper El Mundo in 2017.
The del Río family were surprised by Diana Patricia’s dancing skills. According to one of the versions, in the middle of the performance, Antonio Romero Monge spontaneously recited the song as a compliment to Diana Patricia. Later, she adopted the nickname La Macarena del Mundo.
“We were in Venezuela and a beautiful girl came, a bailaora, and when I saw her start out for a rumba I told her: ‘Give your body joy, Magdalena, your body is to give you joy and good things.’ Magdalena is a beautiful name, but I have a daughter named Esperanza Macarena and, furthermore, the Virgin of Macarena told me one night: ‘ From Magdalena nanai, Macarena, because with your voices I am going to be the most popular name in the story,'» Antonio said in 2017 on a television show.
However, there is another version of the story. Diana Patricia assured that the birth of Macarena occurred only a year later, in 1992, when their paths crossed again in Caracas, in the Los Jarales flamenco hall: “A journalist friend invited me to go and when the show arrived it was Those from the river. I sent them a note with the waiter: ‘Hello, I’m Diana Patricia, we met at Gustavo Cisneros’ house.’ They received the role: ‘There’s a great bailaora friend of ours here who we want to invite to come up and dance’.
«I go up. We dance the sevillanas Antonio and I. Then a rumba sounds, which I begin to dance to Antonio and he comes up with the phrase: ‘Give your body joy, Magdalena, because your body is to give it joy and good things.’ The show ended, I went to greet them and Antonio told me: ‘Did you see the mess I made for you?’ Yeah right. ‘Well, I’m going to make a song out of that,’” Diana Patricia said in the same interview with El Mundo.
The rest is history. The song about a girl, named Macarena, who is unfaithful to her boyfriend with two of his friends (while he swears the flag) first appeared on the 1993 album “A mí me gusta” and was an international hit between 1994 and 1996.
Macarena was heard at the 1996 Super Bowl final and was used as music in the election campaign by the Democratic Party, in which Bill Clinton was re-elected President of the United States .
The video of the president in full exercise of power dancing the unmistakable choreography of the song went around the world.
The song is also remembered because during the gymnastics gala at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the United States women’s team closed their performance by dancing to the song along with the Belarusian team.
There are about 4,700 versions of Macarena all over the world and in all languages
The success of the song has been so great that even ten years later it was still making profits worth more than 60 million euros (according to what was published in the local Sevillian press at the time).
The single sold over 14 million copies according to Media Traffic, of which 4 million were sold in the United States; thus, it became the third single and the first best-selling song in Spanish in the history of music worldwide.
The song ranks #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 of all time. It also ranks #1 of all time on Billboard’s Latin Songs chart .
It is also a No. 1 dance song on the Billboard chart and one of only six non-English-language songs to reach No. 1 since the modern rock era began in 1955.
The American music television network VH1 ranked it as the number 1 musical of all time.
As for the protagonists of the story, Diana Patricia “La Macarena” continues to be a prestigious dancer who has run her own school in Caracas for more than two decades, El Rocío Estudio de Flamenco.
The Del Ríos also continue their successful career. In 2016 they collaborated with the band Gente de Zona for the song Más Macarena and in 2019 they received a call from the American rapper Tyga to participate in Ayy Macarena, another song that went viral.
