Bésame Mucho: Louise Howlett & Albert Combrink Live Video

Singer Louise Howlett and Pianist Albert Combrink perform the ever-popular Bésame Mucho at the launch of their recent CD Night Sessions , 7 October 2010 in Cape Town.

Download Free Video of Bésame Mucho:

As is her trademark, Louise Howlett doesn’t provide just a surface glitz to this “Latin Anthem”, but gets to the heart of the dreams and ambitions of the storyteller. Her version of the song tells the story of someone, blindly and madly in love and just wanting to shower her lover with kisses. But there is a niggling feeling, that she is afraid that this happiness might not last.

This song was composed in Spanish in 1940 by the Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez. Born in either 1916 or 1920, depending on which of her autobiographies you chose to believe, she was in her early twenties – and according to herself – had never yet been kissed.

“She was inspired by the piano piece Quejas, o la Maja y el Ruiseñor“from the 1911 suite Goyescas by Spanish composer Enrique Granados, which he later also included as Aria of the Nightingale in his 1916 opera Goyescas. When asked, years later, whose love had inspired the powerful lyrics, she replied that she had written it before she had ever been kissed, and said that the entire song was a “product of imagination”.” [Margalit Fox: New York Times Obituaries, 30 Jan 2005]

“Consuelo Velázquez was born in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, on August 21, 1920, but grew up in Guadalajara. She began playing piano when she was 4, gave her first public recital at age 6, and moved to Mexico City in her teens to attend the National Conservatory and the Palace of Fine Arts. She became a concert pianist and started writing popular songs shortly afterwards, while overseeing classical music programs for the pioneering radio station XEQ.

“Bésame mucho”(Kiss me a lot) was first recorded in 1941 (by Emilio Tuero and Chela Campos) and became a huge Big Band hit during the Second World War. In 1999, the song, the only Mexican song ever to have topped the U.S. hit parade for 12 straight weeks, was declared the “Song of the Century” at a Univisión event in Miami, Florida.

In addition, “Bésame mucho” featured in several movies, including “A toda máquina” (1951), “The moon over Parador” (1988), “Sueños de Arizona” (1993), and “Moskva Slezam ne Verit”, a Russian movie which won the 1980 Oscar for Best Foreign Film”. [Tony Burton: Mexconnect, 14 March 2008]

 

 

Bésame Mucho – Original Spanish Lyrics by Consuelo Velázquez

Bésame, bésame mucho,
Como si fuera esta noche la última vez.
Bésame, bésame mucho,
Que tengo miedo a tenerte y perderte después.

Quiero tenerte muy cerca,
Mirarme en tus ojos, verte junto a mí.
Piensa que tal vez mañana
Yo ya estaré lejos, muy lejos de tí.

Bésame, bésame mucho,
Como si fuera esta noche la última vez.
Bésame, bésame mucho,
Que tengo miedo a tenerte y perderte después

Bésame Mucho – Rough English Translation by Albert Combrink from the original Spanish by Consuelo Velázquez

Kiss me, kiss me lots
As if this night were the very last time.
Kiss me, kiss me many times
Because I ‘m afraid that I will have you – and then lose you.

I want to hold you so very close,
To see myself in your eyes, to see you next to me.
Think that maybe tomorrow
I might be far, far away from you.

Kiss me, kiss me lots
As if this night were the very last time.
Kiss me, kiss me many times
Because I ‘m afraid that I will have you – and then lose you.

Bésame Mucho (Consuelo Velázquez) – Download Free Sheet Music:

Below, you can view a News Feature on Consuelo Velázquez, which was aired in 2003 by American Univision Broadcast Network. (Produced and directed by Ruben Carrillo)

Listen to the late great Spanish Pianist Alicia de Larrocha perform the work that inspired the writing of Besame Mucho: Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor/The Maiden and the Nightingale by composer Enrique Granados.

This song has come to mean many things to different people over its 70-odd years life-span. Today it resonates with the urban-chic and world-trendy, but many older generations still associate it with the love and loss of World War II.

Read more about these photographs in Sewell Chan’s article for the New York Times.