In 1974, English-born Spanish pop singer Jeanette released a single, Porque te vas (‘Because of You’), written by José Luis Perales. It wasn’t a hit, but then Jeanette (born Janette Anne Dimech, she adopted her stage name when her record label misspelt her name on an early release) wasn’t exactly busting up the international charts – she’d had a number-one hit in Spain with her earlier single Soy rebelde a few years earlier in 1971 but had failed to follow up with more success and was generally unknown outside the country. Perales, then at the start of his songwriting career, wrote the track specifically for her, though she took some persuading to record it. The single wasn’t a hit, which perhaps justified her reluctance. That, perhaps, should have been the end of it.
However, Porque te vas had an unexpected second life two years later when it was featured heavily in the bleak Spanish drama Cría Cuervos – a dark tale of childhood and an allegory for Franco’s Spain. The song – a favourite of the main character – provided an unlikely jolly soundtrack to the rather dour narrative. Although the film wasn’t a big commercial hit, it was a festival favourite and somehow or other, the song – which appears several times in the movie – became a belated hit. It topped the charts in Germany, and reached number 13 in Austria and number 4 in Switzerland, while in France it shifted over a million units. Curiously, it doesn’t seem to have been a hit in Spain at the time, but over the decades the song seems to have become a beloved classic and is one of the best-known Spanish pop tunes.
Porque te vas has been covered several times since and remains one of the great moments of European pop – a quirkily bouncy number that is at once chirpy and downbeat. The song is said to have influenced Air and Carla Bruni, and even became a popular football chant. The success of the record saw Jeanette shift her focus to France and Germany, where she had minor success before returning to Spain with the popular 1981 album Corazón de poeta, the commercial peak of her career.
Be warned: Porque te vas is intensely earwormy and will sit in your head for days.
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