STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
With a song that's going make you feel something. Anamaria Sayre feels it. She is co-host of the podcast and radio show Alt.Latino. Good morning.
ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: What you got?
SAYRE: We've got something really special for you. We're bringing stories from the category that I like to call songs that move you. We have this joke over at Alt.Latino that there's a competition over who's a bigger crier, me or my co-host, Felix - it's Felix...
INSKEEP: OK.
SAYRE: ...Which we're Mexican, so of course. But also, we spend so much time with Latin music, which is so expressive and raw, and we get to see it lived out in so many Latinos' lives. Today, we're going to tell you a story about our friend Alejandra Marquez Janse, and a song that makes her cry.
(SOUNDBITE OF CARLA MORRISON SONG, "TE REGALO")
ALEJANDRA MARQUEZ JANSE, BYLINE: There is a song that can automatically make me cry when I start listening to it, and that's "Te Regalo" by Carla Morrison.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
CARLA MORRISON: (Singing) Déjame tomarte de la mano...Déjame mirarte a los ojos...Déjame, a través de mi mirada, darte todo mi esplendor...
SAYRE: OK, Felix. As you know, Mexican singer Carla Morrison's emotional impact is off the charts.
FELIX CONTRERAS, BYLINE: I've been to her shows. I haven't cried at her shows yet.
SAYRE: Are you sure about that?
CONTRERAS: Yeah.
SAYRE: You've never cried at a single Carla show?
CONTRERAS: No.
SAYRE: I think you're lying to me.
CONTRERAS: Maybe I am, OK?
(LAUGHTER)
SAYRE: You know what's crazy, Felix? Her team actually told me that at her last tour, over 100 people proposed during "Te Regalo."
CONTRERAS: It doesn't surprise me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
MORRISON: (Singing) Te voy a amar hasta morir...Te voy a amar hasta morir...
MARQUEZ JANSE: There are parts of the song that are clearly romantic. But, to me, the main meaning of the song is this sibling connection and this love that I have for my own brother. I don't think there's no one who I would say te voy a amar hasta morir, like, I'm going to love you until I die. The person that I'll always be connected to until I die is my brother.
SAYRE: Ale and Daniel (ph) - that's her little brother, Daniel. He's four years younger than her, and Danny (ph) was the younger brother who couldn't get enough of annoying his teenage sister. But in the fall of 2014, Ale and Danny's lives took a really unexpected turn.
CONTRERAS: 'Cause that's when this big mass migration of people started to leave Venezuela.
SAYRE: And Ale's family was part of that first wave of Venezuelans who left. She told me a little bit about what it was like for her family.
MARQUEZ JANSE: That's the summer I started to cook. So I cooked for the both of us. I started doing laundry. I started - like, I did so much growing in that summer. But it was also just the two of us spending time together. I give a lot of credit to that summer for joining us a lot and all of the migration process, really. Like, it connected us in a way where it hadn't before.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
MORRISON: (Singing) Déjame cuidarte, déjame abrazarte...Déjame enseñarte...
SAYRE: There's so much in "Te Regalo" that references sacrifice. It's what makes it feel so beautiful. I mean, giving everything you have, literally giving your legs for someone to rest their head on. And Ale really took that to heart, especially about this period with her brother, where she'd shifted from being just an older sister to really someone who had to support him in any way she could.
MARQUEZ JANSE: There's this picture of his first, like, awards in his middle school. This was still in the stage where he was learning English. It was really rough for the four of us.
SAYRE: OK, so imagine this, Felix. Ale's 15 years old, and she's like, OK, my parents are working. They can't go. I have to be the one to do this for my brother. She goes up to this auditorium during a school award show and takes a seat by herself with all of these parents.
MARQUEZ JANSE: And we were watching all the kids and all - the whole situation. And I remember just looking up at him and being like, oh, it's just the two of us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
MORRISON: (Singing) Te regalo mis fuerzas, úsalas cada que no tengas...
SAYRE: I mean, she has these lines where she talks about - literally, she wants to gift her fuerzas, her strength. And so it's power, but it's also a gentleness, a tenderness that when Ale told me more about her brother, it just felt like it fit so perfectly with who he is.
MARQUEZ JANSE: Every time I look back at this picture, I'm like, whoa. I basically showed up as his representative at his school awards. And, like, it hurts me for my parents who couldn't be there. It hurts me for him that it was only me, not our parents, there. But it's also, like, this feeling of, like, yeah, I was with him. Like, it was that moment for the two of us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
MORRISON: (Singing) Te regalo mis piernas, recuesta tu cabeza en ellas...
MARQUEZ JANSE: There's something about the chorus specifically. Like, recuesta tu cabeza en mis piernas - it's just such a nurturing feeling of, like, having him around, protecting him, giving him also that support that I'm - always have to be reminding him of. So it makes me think of him.
SAYRE: What's crazy, Felix, at least for me, is that she never told Daniel any of this - of what it means to her.
CONTRERAS: I could see that, that kind of hesitancy between siblings and something so emotional. You don't - almost don't want to talk about it.
SAYRE: Well, lucky for you, lucky for me and lucky for anyone listening, she's going to tell him right now.
CONTRERAS: She's going to express herself in Spanish first.
SAYRE: But don't worry. I got you after in English.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
MORRISON: (Singing) Te voy a amar hasta morir...Te voy a amar hasta morir...
MARQUEZ JANSE: Danny, cada vez que escucho esta canción pienso en ti.
SAYRE: Every time I listen to this song, I think of you.
MARQUEZ JANSE: Y siento que todo lo que dice la canción es algo que...
SAYRE: And I feel like everything the song says is something that I feel was ripped out of my mouth that was always there. And this song put it into words and music.
MARQUEZ JANSE: ...En música. Y no hay vez que yo no escuche esta canción, en que este coro no me haga llorar, porque pienso en ti...
SAYRE: And there isn't a time when I listen to the song that this chorus doesn't make me cry because I think of you...
MARQUEZ JANSE: (Laughter)...Y en lo mucho que te quiero, hermano.
SAYRE: ...And how much I love you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TE REGALO")
MORRISON: (Singing) Te regalo mis piernas, recuesta tu cabeza en ellas...Te regalo mis fuerzas, úsalas cada que no tengas... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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