Y La Bamba – Ojos Del Sol
2017
13K Likes
Best comments
1.“I don't know how to accurately articulate that I would straight up die for someone who sang like this to me.”
More comments
- 2.“Holy wow... I thought this was a song made in the 1940s, and I'm blown away it's from 2016.”
- 3.“I'm not fluent in Spanish, so learning the story in this song is a bit like unwrapping a gift – one wrapped so beautifully you almost don't want to tear the paper. Each time I listen, it blooms into another layer.”
The story
Y La Bamba is the Portland band built around Luz Elena Mendoza. She was born in San Francisco to parents from Michoacán, Mexico, and grew up on the music of their homeland – rancheras, corridos, boleros, huapangos. She was raised in Southern Oregon, studied theology in New Zealand, did a mission in India, then came home and found her band through Portland's open mic nights.
Ojos Del Sol (eyes of the sun) is the title track of the band's fourth album, released on Tender Loving Empire in 2016 and named one of NPR's top 50 albums of the year. It's a sparse one: Spanish vocals and acoustic guitar with a few strings and soft percussion underneath, turning over change, lost faith and the return of wonder. Mendoza has said the record was her way of celebrating a part of herself and treating vulnerability as a teacher rather than a monster. The video followed in 2017.
