Episode 035 - Top 10 Songs About Mexico

This week, we are going through a list of our favorite songs to take with you on a Mexican vacation. They're not all ABOUT going on a Mexican vacation, but they're a good mixed tape for you to listen to while on vacation in Mexico. So pour yourself a big Margarita and settle in for our Top 10 Going to Mexico songs, this week on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

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Transcript

Alex Gadd: 0:00

Welcome to The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another top 10 list for you. This is a list of my favorite songs about getting away to Mexico, because I'm going to Mexico right after this episode launches. Mexico is a common destination in rock-n-roll as a place to escape to, to get away to, and I'll get into that. So stick around for my list of the top 10 songs related to getting away to Mexico coming up right now. The first song about Mexico I ever heard was probably La Cucaracha, which was a Mexican folk song that became popular in Mexico in the early 20th century during the Mexican Revolution. By the early 1970s, it was popular across the U. S. as well. I seem to remember it being used in cartoons and sung in school classrooms when I was a young kid. The first popular song about Mexico I ever heard was probably soon after that on some AM radio station in my parents car. Might have been Steely Dan's My Old School, where Donald Fagen wants to take the object of his affections down to Mexico. But she says,"oh no, Guadalajara won't do." Which crushes poor Donald, and forced me to ask, What the hell is Guadalajara? It was either that song or it was James Taylor's"Mexico," a song idealizing Mexico as a place JT had never really been, but he'll just have to go. It's though it was written to be a tourism jingle for Mexico. Since then, I've heard a bunch of songs that are either explicitly about Mexico or reminiscent of Mexico, unfortunately, most of them aren't as positive as James Taylor's Mexico song, which made compiling this list a little harder than I originally envisioned because I wanted to stick to a beach vacation vibe. In both country and rock-n-roll, many of the songs about running away to Mexico are really about running away from the law in the U. S. after committing a crime. And that doesn't really bring on the vacation vibes. I'm thinking of songs like Toby Keith's"Bullets in the Gun," Delbert McClinton's"Down Into Mexico." Those are about running away from the law. Even The Babys. Take a look at The Babys. They never really had an outlaw image, but they wrote a song called"Run to Mexico" about a guy asking his girl to run to Mexico with him because he just killed someone didn't get that one. At least Eddie Money's give me some water is about committing a murder and he's already at the Mexican border and then running. It's not clear if he committed the crime in Mexico or in the U. S. on the border, and it's also not clear if he was running into Mexico or running just away from the law at the border. So, not a Mexican vacation song there. Steve Miller wrote a great song about going to Mexico, but it's about getting to Mexico to get away from a lover who's jilted him. Similarly, Cake, one of my favorite more recent bands, wrote a song called"Mexico," but again, it's about a guy going to Mexico to get away from a relationship that's not working out. Those are not the vacation vibes I was looking for. Then there's songs that take advantage of rhyming words with places like Acapulco, which the Four Tops inexplicably did in 1988, more than 20 years after they had had their last major hit when they recorded the song"Loco In Acapulco" and it's just bad, bad. Elvis tried"Fun In Acapulco" and"You Can't Say No In Acapulco" both from the soundtrack to his 1963 movie"Fun In Acapulco," and those songs are even worse than the Four Tops song. And then Elvis recorded another song for the same soundtrack, simply titled"Mexico," and it's the worst of the bunch. Then there are the songs that are about tequila that really aren't about Mexico either. Starting with the template for all such songs, The Champs'"Tequila." Though it was written by a Mexican American sax player, Chuck Rio his birth name was Daniel Flores the only word in a mostly instrumental song is Tequila, so not really a Mexican beach vacation song, although it's a pretty fun song. Phish wrote a fun song called Mexican Cousin. It's all about celebrating tequila for its sometimes destructive effects, but that's neither about Mexico, or really a feel good song either. Although it is fun to sing along to. Then there's Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, which was the first song that popped into my head when I thought about putting this list together, but that isn't really about Mexico either. At best, the singer mentions his brand new tattoo, which is of a"Mexican cutie." And if you listen to it with a critical ear, which I did when I was compiling this list, it's kind of depressing. It's a song about an alcoholic who's been wasting away drinking tequila down somewhere at a beach, but not definitively in Mexico. Strangely, the tone of the song seems to have been completely overlooked. Uh, maybe not so strangely, but Margaritaville today has become a beach bar brand that symbolizes good times and fun in the sun and relaxing I tried to incorporate Mexican American artists into this list where possible. And I did get a couple of them in hence, Santana's in here for sure. But I realized that Mexican American rockers don't really spend their time writing about going to Mexico for the most part. And if you think about it, why should they? Bands like Los Lonely Boys and Los Lobos, write about their lived experience, which in both of those cases meant growing up in LA. I love both those bands, but they didn't write any songs about jetting down to Mexico to go on vacation and have fun. Then there are The Cruzados, who produced one of my favorite albums of the 80s, 1987's After Dark. But they wrote heartland rock more reminiscent of Springsteen and Mellencamp than of anything hinting at a Mexican influence. Nor should they have. Ritchie Valens recorded very little music in his tragically shortened career, and La Bamba certainly, by far, was the most famous of his songs. But while La Bamba is in Spanish, it's not about Mexico. Linda Ronstadt didn't start exploring her Mexican heritage until the late 1980s, a full decade after her peak as a top artist in the music business in the 70s. And then she started recording occasional albums of traditional Mexican folk music in Spanish, as did Los Lobos around the same time. But my Spanish isn't great, and I have no connection to those songs, so it feels disingenuous to include them on this list now. I share all of this to let you know that this list was a lot harder to compile than I expected, and I wanted to share my thought process about how I ultimately put this list together with you. After all of that, I'm sure I'll still miss a few good songs, so I encourage you to post your own suggestions for this list in the comments below. I look forward to learning about more great music about Mexico so that I can share it with all of you, which is really what this podcast is all about after all. Anyway, enough of my yapping about what isn't on this list. Let's get to the top 10 songs about getting away to Mexico. Starting off with number 10 on the list, it's Knee Deep by the Zac Brown Band with Jimmy Buffett. This is a great way to start off the list with two acts that each write great songs about hanging out and drinking at the beach. While Zac Brown writes some of these songs, it's Jimmy Buffett's whole brand, and this song is an excellent combination of the two artists sounds and vibe. Now this tune isn't about Mexico, but the vibe is very beach vacation, so I'm taking some liberty and putting it at number 10. The song is about getting away to the beach and letting the water wash away your blues, regardless of what issues you have in your day to day life. Zach and Jimmy trade verses and everybody sings the choruses. Sure. It's idealistic, but that's exactly what I want to hear heading into a beach vacation. When they wrap up the song with the coda,"when you lose yourself, you find the key to paradise." Yes, that's idealistic too, in just the way I want when I'm heading out to sit on a beach for four days. Here's the band playing the song last summer at Jones Beach on Long Island, using a recording of Jimmy's part and some video for the second verse. Take a listen.

8:08

Could see me back in a minute. On a boat and a sail up in the air. Don't think anybody's gonna miss me anyway. On a permanent vacation. The ocean is my only medication. Wishing my condition ain't ever gonna go away. Cause now I'm hoppin in deep in a wilder somewhere. Got the blue sky, breeze blowin Put my hair on the parade. No girl is a type gonna reach my head.

Alex Gadd: 8:46

Song nine on this list is Mas Tequila by Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas. Yes, there are some drinking songs on this list, but at least there are ones that actually are written about Mexico. And one of the things that Sammy Hagar is as passionate about or seems to be as music Is his connection to Cabo San Lucas in Baja, California, where he opened up a club and started a tequila brand, both named Cabo Wabo, after the Van Halen song that Sammy wrote with Edward Van Halen for the OU812 album in 1988. Once he left Van Halen, he formed various other bands, including the Waboritas in 1997. They recorded their first album two years later called Red Voodoo, and the song Más Tequila was the lead track and first single from the album. It's really like Sammy's statement of purpose for his lifestyle in Mexico, all about going to Mexico to get away from the pressures of everyday life and having a party with your friends, drinking tequila. It's a fun party song. Here's Sammy singing the tune on this past summer's best of all worlds tour at the Xfinity Center in Massachusetts.

10:00

It's all a little more precise. I say, for the shot. Hey! Mustard tequila. To the shot. Hey! Give me that tequila. Action! From me to the boss. I say, for the tequila.

Alex Gadd: 10:21

Mexican vacation song number eight is Wall of Voodoo's"Mexican Radio." I know, I know this song has zero vacation feel. It's a weird early eighties, new wavy rock song that's tense in its presentation from the music to the vocal delivery. So why is it on here? Because I love this song when it came out in 1982, it was one of the first videos I saw on MTV, which we got in my house in early 1983 and this song caught my attention both because of Stan Ridgway's singing, which wasn't really singing at all, but was talking in a twitchy delivery that was simultaneously off putting and mesmerizing, and the lyrics, which were about listening to Mexican radio stations. It's important to share here that Mexican radio stations in the fifties, sixties, seventies, at least were largely unregulated. And so they were broadcast via very powerful AM radio transmitters that pushed the signal well over the border into the U. S. Just like ZZ Top's"Heard It On the X," this song shares what it was like to hear those broadcasts. I thought the lyrics were great and I still do. Lines like,"I understand just a little, no comprende, it's a riddle" and"I wish I was in Tijuana eating barbecued iguana," those lines really captured my imagination as a 14 year old kid. So I wanted to get the song on CD, when I got my first CD player and I got that in early 1984, but I couldn't find the CD anywhere, probably because the Wall of Voodoo record had been released in 82 before CDs were common, and it was kind of a fringe band with an album that hadn't sold all that well. So I assume no one was in a rush to re release it on CD. Now, the record companies didn't get wise to that scam for a few more years. Anyway. I found an IRS Records sampler CD, which featured individual songs from IRS Records' then-current roster of artists who included The Police, because IRS Records was owned by Stuart Copeland's brother, Miles, the Go Go's, Oingo Boingo, the Buzzcocks, the Alarm, Timbuk Three of"The Future So Bright I've Got to Wear Shades" fame, and one of my favorite bands ever, who I heard for the first time when I got this sampler CD, Concrete Blonde, more about them later. Anyway,"Mexican Radio" is on my list because. It was on that CD and it always makes me happy to hear it. Watch a short clip from the original video here.

12:44

Just C. O. A. D. O.

Alex Gadd: 13:11

Number seven on the list is"Toes," again by the Zac Brown Band. Back to the good time beach music. This was their third single from their debut album and was their second number one song on the Hot Country Billboard charts, which was pretty good for a new act."Chicken Fried" was the first. This song was the first to really draw a comparison to Jimmy Buffet's sound. And while this song isn't explicitly about relaxing in Mexico, it leaves plenty of hints to suggest that it is. The chorus starts with"Adios and Vaya con Dios" and goes on to rhyme tequila and senoritas before declaring that all the muchachas call him big poppa when he throws pesos their way. So it's either Mexico or another Spanish speaking Caribbean country. But the part that appeals to me as I'm getting ready for my trip to Mexico is I've got my toes in the water, my ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand. Life is good today. Indeed it is. Indeed it is. Song six is the classic"South of the Border(Down Mexico Way)," which has been recorded by a ton of artists. I chose the Frank Sinatra version because, Hey, it's Sinatra. It starts with a classic horn part and keeps a cheery mid tempo pace the whole way through. I remember hearing this song for the first time in college when I bought my first Sinatra compilation CD and I thought, yeah, that's just what I want to do. I want to go down to Mexico and"fall in love when the stars above come out to play." Oh, great lyrics. The song was originally written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr and released in 1939. It was released by no less than five artists in 1939, including Gene Autry and Guy Lombardo. It's been covered at least 20 other times, and I have yet to hear a version that's more upbeat than Frank's. And I still think about the song every time I go to a beach vacation. Here's Sinatra singing this tune on the Colgate Comedy Hour in 1953, which is why you're going to see grainy footage and a little tape hiss. Y'all forgive me because it's a great song.

15:18

South of the border, down Mexico way. That's where I fell in love, when the stars above came out to play. And now as I wander, my thoughts ever stray. South of the border, down Mexico way.

Alex Gadd: 15:44

At number five, James Taylor's aforementioned track, Mexico. Released on J. T.'s 1975 album, Gorilla, this song really gets it right with the vibe, which is laid back, but not too laid back. Yeah, the singer's singing about a woman who's down in Mexico and has no money to get home. And then the next verse is about a guy who sounds like he has the shakes from trying to get clean and is hiding out in Mexico to clean up. But Mexico"sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low, the moon so bright, like to light up the night, make everything all right." Come on, great lyrics. But then James Taylor inexplicably sings,"I've never really been, so I don't really know." And then he goes on to say,"I guess I'll have to go." So what I thought was a first person account of his time in Mexico switched mid song to a dream of going someplace like Mexico. Anywhere that was not the Northeast of the United States in the winter, for sure. The part I latched onto as a teenager was"it sounds so simple I just have to go." As it turns out, it wasn't that simple. I didn't get to Mexico until 2021. But now this is my third trip and I hope I can go every year from here on out. Here's JT singing the song in September in Bridgeport at the show that I saw him at.

17:00

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Gadd: 17:22

Getting to number four, we have The Coasters'"Down In Mexico." This song has more of an edge than the others on the list or most of the others on the list, but it's an edge I really like. The song was written by the famous songwriting duo of Lieber and Stoller, who had written"Hound Dog" for Big Mama Thornton and"Kansas City," which was recorded successfully by Wilbert Harrison a few years later. Those were their early 50s songs that put them on the map, and then they connected with the Coasters in 1956 for this song,"Down in Mexico," and the next year, had two more big hits with the Coasters in"Young Blood" and"Yakety Yak," along with providing Elvis with his next big hit, also in 1957,"Jailhouse Rock." So that put Lieber and Stoller at the top of the pile of American popular songwriters. Now admittedly, this song is not a vacation vibe at all, but I just love it. It's about a Mexican honky tonk run by a cat named Joe who"wears a red bandana and plays a blues piana" and also"wears a purple sash and a black mustache." It's got a great feel to it and it's sung with flair by Coaster's lead singer Carl Gardner. The song tells a story about how the singer meets Joe and then dances with a strange woman who shows off a dance he's never seen before. This is just a great rock-n-roll song, courtesy of Lieber and Stoller. Take a listen.

18:54

To where the drinks are hotter than the chili sauce And the boss is a cat named Joe He wears a red bandana, plays a boss viola In a honky tonk, down in Mexico He wears a purple sash, and a black mustache In a honky tonk, down in Mexico

Alex Gadd: 19:21

At number three we have the Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela with their song"Ixtapa." This is an incredible instrumental acoustic guitar duo, and I can't recommend their music highly enough. Ixtapa is a resort town in the Pacific, right next to Zihuatanejo, which is a town known to all Shawshank Redemption fans as the town Andy Dufresne went to when he escaped prison. The song"Ixtapa" is one of the first ones I gravitated to when I was introduced to Rodrigo y Gabriela by my friend Dan. Dan, I hope you're doing well. Thank you for turning me on to them, along with the song"Diablo Rojo" from their debut album in 2006. But what I didn't know until just recently is that Ixtapa is where these two went to figure out their next steps after their metal band fell apart in Mexico City when they lost their record deal. In Ixtapa, they played at beach bars and developed their dynamic dual acoustic guitar sound. And dynamic is the key to appreciating their music. They play with incredible dynamics. They play with such precision, whether they're playing fast or slow or mixing it up as an Ixtapa. Check out this live performance. Song two on our list is"Veracruz" by Santana. This song came along relatively late in Santana's career as the lead track on 1987's Freedom album, and you can definitely tell the synthesizer lines give it away as being very mid 80s, but that doesn't hurt the song at all. And it's important to note that there is another song called"Veracruz" written by Warren Zevon, which is a more serious, heavy song about the Mexican Revolution. This is not that song. The first lines lay out the stakes for this song."Come on, baby. Don't you want to go way down South talking about Mexico?" That's it. No more, no less. The song is an upbeat song about wanting to get away to Veracruz, which is a state in Eastern Mexico that has a long shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico, and while I don't believe Carlos Santana ever lived in Veracruz, that doesn't really affect the song. The song is a compelling call to action for a very simple idea with a rousing chorus of"me and you down in Veracruz doing what you want to do down in Veracruz." Here's a video of the song being played live with singer Buddy Miles. Yes, that Buddy Miles, the drummer from the band of Gypsies, fronting the Santana band and sporting one of the most unfortunate hairdos of a particularly challenging decade for hairdos. Check it out.

22:35

Baby, don't you want to come home? People movin to the drum Well, let me tell you how the process begins And it never stops Drink pizza face and people party till they drop Forget the laundry, forget the rain We'll get to heaven on a 7. 30 Play me and you Down, down in bed Down and out.

Alex Gadd: 23:25

I don't care about the synthesizers, the bad hair, the goofy fashion. This song gets me excited to go on any beach vacation. So come on, baby. Don't you want to go? And finally coming in at number one on our list of Mexican vacation songs is"Mexican Moon" by Concrete Blonde. As I mentioned, I love this band and have since I discovered them on that IRS Records sampler back in 1984, This was the title track of this L. A. band's 1993 fifth album, much like their song"Bloodletting," which was my favorite Halloween song in last month's episode. This is an atmospheric song that sounds a little ominous, but where"Bloodletting" was a song about vampires, this song is a song about running away to Mexico after a breakup, so it violates my rationale for excluding some of the other songs I considered, because it's not a cheery party music song. But after a long day of drinking and sitting in the sun, I like the idea of sitting on the beach, looking up at the moon on a cloudless night with an ocean breeze and the smell of salt water in the air, thinking of your loved one. Also, I sometimes enjoy melancholy songs, even when I'm not sad, maybe especially when I'm not sad. And I love Concrete Blonde's sound. So the dreamy nature of this one really gets me. And I love the feeling of the chorus, the music has a slowed down mariachi undercurrent to it, and it's just a great song, one I'll be listening to the whole time I'm down there. Here's the band performing the show on TV in 1994, complete with Jeanette Napolitano rocking her castanets.

24:54

I am tired and dry, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sick of thinking of you. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you.

Alex Gadd: 25:25

Well, that's the list of my favorite songs about getting away to Mexico. Which ones did I miss? Which are your favorites? There's plenty of room for other opinions at The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. So please let me know what you think in the comments below. And that's it for this week's episode. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next Tuesday and, if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about every new episode and please tell your friends. Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode. So look for The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week, this week, featuring the songs I mentioned here today. So check that out. And as I said, we want to know what you think. Please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to every one of them. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd. And until next week, remember that life is short. So get those concert tickets.