Macarena

"Macarena"
Song

"Macarena" is a song by Los del Río about a woman of the same name, or any woman from the La Macarena neighbourhood of Seville. It was very successful between 1995 and 1997.

The song became the second longest running #1 and best selling debut single of all time in the US. It was ranked the "#1 Greatest One-Hit Wonder of all Time" by VH1 in 2002.

Origin and History

As a result of their lounge act, Los del Río were invited to tour South America in March, 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 joy, Magdalene, 'cause your body is for giving joy and good things to"). 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.

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 that they 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 Seville's barrio La Macarena. 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 (whose name may be inspired from a kind of bull with long horns, evoking the cornudo, or male victim of his partner's infidelity, a mental image common in Spanish and Latin American culture), 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. In Canada, however, the Los del Mar version was quite popular on MuchMusic and top 40 radio in the spring of 1995, eclipsing the later popularity of the original.

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 11 million copies. While only having a 25% take in royalties from the song, Romero and Ruiz became immensely wealthy According to the BBC News Service, during the year 2003 alone — a full decade after the song's initial release — Romero and Ruiz made USD $250,000 in royalties. 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."

In VH1's 2002 documentary 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders, Macarena was ranked as #1. Also on a different VH1 documentary, 40 Awesomely Bad No. 1 Songs, Macarena was ranked #1.

Dance

A U.S. soldier teaches the Macarena dance to an Iraqi soldier.

The song was associated with a distinctive fast dance. The song originally had no dance, 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 the back of 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 rear end, right then left
• The routine finishes with a pelvic rotation in time with the line "Ehhhh Macarena!"
• Then the dancer turns 90 degrees counter 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

• In Disney's Cory In the House, Mina describes a dance called the "Yakarina", which consists of harsh movements and grunts.
• Sergey Minaev, a Russian singer, made a parody on the song (and the clip), replacing large portions with meaningless babble.
• 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-received in the top-40 club circuit.
• 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 Super Bowl XXXI, Milwaukee radio morning show Dan Weber & Jane Matenaer from WMYX-FM released a parody called the "Packarena," 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 Nut" appeared, featuring the show's lead characters, Yakko, Wakko and Dot, singing the lyrics, while various supporting and incidental 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".
• In the final season of "Pinky and the Brain", the three-part episode entitled "Brainwashed" features at its center a parody dance called the "Schmëerskåhøvên" (schmeer-ska-hue-vin). The Schmëerskåhøvên is a plot to get revenge on mankind that, when danced, makes the subject's IQ shrink. In the episode, Pinky and the Brain must stop the force behind the dance before it's too late. The lyrics are instructions for the dance, the opening line of which is "Put your fingers in your ears, then stick 'em in your belly; don't be afraid if it jiggles like jelly. Yaah, Schmëerskåhøvên! (Clap)" The band that is duped into recording the song is called BAAB (parody of ABBA).
• 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 gabber parody entitled "F*** 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.
• Samuel Ramirez of Sam & Simon made a parody called "Gonorrhea". This one is also popularly mis-attributed to "Weird Al" Yankovic & Cheech & Chong.
• Johnny Crass (a.k.a. the "Redneck Jihad") made a parody called "Bomb Osama".
• Shock-jocks Opie and Anthony released a parody on its Demented World CD entitled "Hey Masturbator."
• A brief, up-tempoed remix of the Macarena is featured in Disney's California Adventure's Block Party Bash.
• The Deathgrind band Brujería made a parodic version called "Marijuana"; this appeared in the same named EP album.
• Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show on CBS, frequently jokes that the Macarena was invented by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
• Don Imus released a parody entitled Iraqarena [1], in which Saddam Hussein taunts President Clinton and cracks several bad Iraq puns.
• In several episodes of Australian soap opera Neighbours several characters have been seen dancing to a soundalike version of the macarena, doing several of the moves.
• In the show Zoey 101, a song named 'The Macalena' was mentioned. It was said to be the most embarrassing song of the nineties, with the character of Zoey being forced to dance it in front of everyone.
• In 1997, the GrooveGrass Boyz, a group known for blending bluegrass music and funk music, recorded a countrified version of the Macarena.
• Yoyoy Villame, a Filipino folk singer made his own rendition of the song where one person does the intro then starts coughing
• Base 10 a Swedish Trance producer made a free house remix of the song
• In the HBO series, Flight of the Conchords, a duo makes a one hit wonder called "the Dogggy Bounce". The music video was of them in suits with a white background and girls dancing around them.
• A version of the song, with English lyrics, appears on Black Lace's Greatest Hits.
• In the video game World of Warcraft, female humans are able to perform this dance.
• In an episode of Pokemon, Ash misinterprets Pikachu's attempts at communication as Clefaris doing the Macarena.

External links

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