There are musicians who don't even think of asking for hits from the past.

What do you think of this position?

I guess there comes a time when if you've played a song too many times you're tired of it and it stops giving you the high, it loses its effect.

Like when you eat too many times a food that you like and there comes a time when you don't want to try it anymore.

It is exactly the same.

You run out of your own hits, so from time to time you have to take them out of the repertoire to rest and then you take them again with a vengeance.

On the other hand, there is also a process in music that I think most people undergo, which is that one cannot help but evolve.

So, what you do in one moment you consider, in some way, surpassed ten years later.

But it's not that it's part of the past, but that you like it more or you identify more with what you're doing in the present.

Is this the case?

'Que me parta un rayo' was very successful and people have been asking me for songs from this record for a long time.

And suddenly the 30th anniversary arrives and I thought it was time to treat myself -and also give people a treat- to listen again to those songs that are loaded with memories and that identify with a time, with which one has lived

Because that entire album hasn't been played since 1993. Songs like 'The soles of my boots' or 'I have a gun'.

In other words, it is a trip to the past.


And how does that journey feel?

It's very impressive to realize that most of the songs have stood the test of time.

For example, 'You for me' could have been written now.

Or 'A thousand pieces'.

'I'm in a car' maybe not, but mainly because now I don't drive by car anymore, I go by bike.

But, with the same motivation, I could make a song about riding a bicycle as a metaphor for freedom.

I think that is still valid today.


What do you miss from then?

There is something in 'Que me parta un rayo' that is very beautiful and that I probably only had on that album, which is the ingenuity of the first songs you write.

At that time I was already an experienced lyricist, however as a composer it was the first time that I started to do it.

So, they have all the ingenuity and immediacy of the first compositions made with guitar.

I think that the combination of these two factors, plus the fact that it was a female point of view -and feminist too, which was something very new at the time- was what made that record stand out so much then.

She has mentioned feminism.

How do you see it 30 years later?

It is a declaration of independence.

'The sole of my boots' talks about that, about being in a relationship in which you suffer and from which you have to get out.

All the songs talk a bit about emotional independence, except 'Not a damn little flower', which is precisely about falling in love.

Let's talk about 'I'm in a car'...


Did you know that it was chosen "Song of the Year" by the Spanish truckers magazine?

Oh, it hits everything.

I wanted to ask you what you think that 'Voy en un coche' continues to be a success in provincial pubs, karaoke bars and other popular venues.

It's true that there have been times when I've made pop songs a bit more experimental, but I always keep an eye on popular songs and try to get back there.

For me the popular song is a very pure form of artistic expression because it comes from people who have no artistic education and it is written from the base, from the guts.

It is always in connection with popular sentiment and with the present, with the moment in which it is written, and it has this horizontal capacity to transcend all social and sometimes geographical layers as well.

So it's a super powerful form of artistic expression.

This is what I have also done with 'Safo'.

At the time, it was a popular song that people learned and for centuries it was sung at weddings and banquets.

It is the cradle of what Rosalía does right now.


A documentary by Coque Malla has just been released in which he tells that he and other musicians -like you- were in a kind of generational hinge.


I am an intergenerational person, because I was too young in the Movida and in the 90s, the indie era caught me with a lot of experience.

I have never felt part of a generation.

That time when Los Ronaldos also appeared was a moment between movements.

I remember that what happened with the public did not correspond with what I saw later in the media.

The success did not correspond to the assessment that was made at that time in the media.

Then he has recovered and they have recovered me too.

In fact, even records that at the time seem to have been disliked and then have defended themselves.


Why?

It is logical that each generation has to break with the previous to define itself.

It is something that when you have children you see very clearly.

You have to break away from authority to define your own personality.

This is something that happens at an artistic level, at a cultural level and at all levels.

You can be part of the trend at a particular moment, but you also have to stand the test of time, have your songs sit there like ingots through time: if you manage to write songs that define the spirit of the times.

Because at the end of it all, what really matters are the songs.

It's what gets people hooked, not you, not what your life is, not what you look like.

In the end, it's the songs that matter, not the artists.


According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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