JULIO IGLESIAS, “LO MEJOR DE TU VIDA”

6th June, 1987

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There are three emotional cycles I went through on encountering this song, over the several listens it has taken me to assimilate it. As best as I can reconstruct them, they are:

1. Goodness, you can tell without looking that whoever sings this is a Star.

2. Nevertheless it is like the most boring drippy ballad evar.

3. Holy shit these lyrics are amazing.

Julio Iglesias is the first name I've encountered on this journey that I know I've heard before beginning it. (The only other challenger, Juan Gabriel, is a more doubtful case; I might have heard of him, but it's kind of a generic name). He is, to put it in as offensively reductive a manner as possible, real-world famous in addition to being Latin Pop famous, and in 1987 had been so for nearly a decade, a man who had breached the Top Ten in the company of Willie Nelson (of all people), who titled an album after the home he subsequently sold to Quincy Jones, who even went to number one in the UK — and it was the Popular crew's discussion of that number one, with its predictable reliance on the British institution of continental package tours as the only lens through which Latin music makes any sense, that first gave me the small inkling of a desire to tackle a project like this, and talk about Latin music from a provincial, blinkered American standpoint.

And here he sounds like the megastar he is, with the most expensive-sounding production we've encountered to date. Listen to it on headphones and marvel at the miles of room in it, with guitars and keyboards and drums and harp and accordion separated out in a mix that creates a soft, glossy pillow for his golden, infinitely tender voice. We've been talking about vocal styles here, perhaps somewhat incoherently; but if Iglesias doesn't have the greatest voice from a technical standpoint, he's a master at deploying his cracked baritone to the maximum emotional and sensual effect. (I'd compare it to Neil Diamond again, but only because pop singers who sound like men are so rare in American pop that he's about the only game in town; and Iglesias is way better than Neil Diamond.)

But after marveling at the surface effect of the song's presentation of That Voice (you couldn't possibly have a production like this for an unknown singer, it would be laughed out of court), I grew restless; it was a slow song, a ballad, and repetitive as all hell. I caught fragments of the lyrics, but my Spanish is Central American vernacular (I'm still not used to Castilian pronunciation), and what I did catch didn't impress me; the phrase repeated at the beginning of each verse translates dully as "You were mine, only mine; mine, mine." I've never liked ballads on first acquaintance, and even today it's rare for one to push through my low attention span to really get across to me.

But then I looked up the lyrics — as I do for every song here, to check them against my ear — and translated them on the fly, and sat staring. They couldn't possibly be that poetic! I looked up the words I was uncertain of. No; they were even more poetic than that.

Manuel Alejandro, the song's composer, has been one of the premier ballad composers in Latin music since the 1960s, and he's worked with Julio Iglesias since the early 70s. Un Hombre Solo, the smash hit record from which "Lo Mejor De Tu Vida" ("the best [years] of your life") was taken, was entirely written and produced by Alejandro. His lyrical style is highly romantic, even extravagant, and I'm still a bit puzzled by at least one metaphor (is "colina cerrada" an idiomatic phrase in some version of vernacular Spanish? its literal translation, "closed hill," defeats my powers of analysis), but his choice of a simple, even basic, structure allied to vivid, poetically-expressed imagery is inspired: the result is a song with a folk-like structure but layered with a patina of García Lorca-like lyricism.

And all this is without getting into the meaning of the lyrics. He sounds tender, but there's an undercurrent of possessiveness, of predation, even of coercion, that mitigates against the common image of Iglesias as some kind of standard "passionate but honorable" Latin lover. But it's also more than just a rape fantasy; there's genuine emotion (sorrow? regret? revulsion?) in his performance. I don't rate these songs (I don't as a rule believe in ratings), but this is the greatest song, in whatever sense of the word you choose to apply, that we've had yet.

My translation of the lyric follows; let me know if I've gotten something wrong. Also, please let me know if you'd like me to include such translations from here on out. I'd most likely be doing the work anyway; would it be useful enough to you that the additional scrolling is worth it? The comments box works.

THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your skin was fresh

Like dewy grass

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your mouth and eyes

Overflowed with youth

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your maiden's lips

First encountered mine

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your womb was still

An unopened hill

The best years of your life

I have carried away

The best years of your life

I have enjoyed

Your first experience

The awakening of your flesh

Your savage innocence

I have drunk it all

I have drunk it all

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your body was the shoot

Of a newly-planted palm

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When you barely closed your eyes

I stole in close beside you

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your hands trembled

If they were only touched

You were mine

Only mine

Mine, all mine

When your yesterday did not exist

And you thought only of tomorrow

The best years of your life

I have carried away

The best years of your life

I have enjoyed

Your first experience

The awakening of your flesh

Your savage innocence

I have drunk it all

I have drunk it all