Hi there M4 fans! It's really not long to go now until Julio is singing his heart out for you here in Dubai! We are all very excited for this! However we also like to show you a side of the acts and performers that we bring to you that you may not know or see to much of. Many people seem to think that singers and bands are nothing much but vacuous, talented people who get by with being able to hold it together long enough to perform onstage then spend the rest of their time riding around on jet skis or driving fast cars.
We know this is simply not the case having dealt with all of the acts personally and speaking to them extensively before and after the show. Julio Iglesias is no different so we would like you to take the time to read this article published in El Mundo about what else Julio is about. You find not only a true musical talent but also a highly intelligent mind that likes to be challenged and discuss many interesting themes. Check it out here and see what you think!
He is happy «with wine and a piece of bread and, of
course, with caviar and champagne.» He has sung to life, to love, and
to the people of Spain. He has socialized with U.S. presidents and has
invited 400 unemployed workers to his concert in Leon. Here he is:
Julio.
The first part of the
conversation takes place in an electric golf cart in which the singer of
Hey travels around his estate in the mountains of Marbella. There is a
stage set up on the edge of the pool, where he has been talking via
satellite with Finland, Indonesia, the Philippines, China and India, as
part of the promotion of his compilation 1, in which he returns to sing
his greatest hits. The same ones he will launch into on Sunday, a few
kilometers from here, in the final concert of his Spanish tour.
Julio, thank you very much for inviting me to your...
You're welcome. But listen: What's this I have heard that you got married with my music?
Well... the truth is that we played three songs at the wedding, yes.
And where was it?
In Villafranca del Bierzo, Leon.
Well
hey. I remember when we used to stop there those summers on our way to
Cangas del Morrazo. How fast the years go by. And I don't have much
time left, Darío.
But, Julio, what a thing to say...
How old are you?
33. Now that you ask: where were you at my age?
[Laughter] Ah, if I told you...
With
more than 300 million records sold, Julio Iglesias is the Spanish
musician who has had the most international success. A global icon of a
rogue and of a gentleman. Mischievously he remarks to a Taiwanese
journalist that his older children are half Asian on their mother's
side, and seeing her face reminds him of them.
You look sad.
When
I reviewed these songs, I realized that I would no longer be able, in
my damned life, to write songs like these again. They are full of words
that I would not be able to put together again. And nothing would
please me more than that my country would understand that I have
learned. If you leave this life without them telling you that you have
done well in the country where you were born, then a sad vestige
remains, like marginalization. That «No one is a prophet in his own
land» is horrible for Spain.
How did you begin?
In
the year 1963, when everyone was singing about «baby» and «doll,» I
wrote La vida sigue igual, which was the first pop song in Spain,
without a doubt.
Are you a philosopher?
[He
laughs, throwing his head back. Then he gets serious.] I was in bed
dying after a car accident, and I still could say: «There is always
something to live for.» And then that became a hymn. I read a lot when
I was sick, and I can discuss perfectly well Plato or Kant, but I am
not very interested in picking up a book to write a song.
But your music does present an attitude toward life.
My
songs are all small stories. I do not become rhetorical when I write
because I have never been an intellectual. I am a watcher, who, having
lived in so many places, has learned more from looking into the eyes of
different cultures.
How does the crisis appear at this stage?
Spain
is a modern country which is ready for a new economic boom. Having not
lived in Spain for 35 years, when I return, I continue to be amazed: We
have fantastic roads, plenty of airports, and a high speed train. An
extremely modern country.
But with serious problems.
What
is not logical is the rate of unemployment, 25% without jobs. But the
greatest shame of my country is that, after 15 years during which Spain
gave refuge to people from around the world, today it has become a place
from which young people, 25-30 years old, have to leave. People who
have cost the Spanish state a lot, and who leave at an age when they
fall in love with a person or with a country, and they stay there
forever. Human beings very educated whom we are losing. It's absurd.
Is it the fault of the politicians?
In
general, with some exceptions, Spanish politicians do not have the
necessary universality. They have not visited other lands, and instead
of being technocrats have been populists. Spain has been a country of
the short-term, less in the case of the great poets and the great
artists.
What do you do for your country?
So
that people are aware: I pay my direct taxes in Spain. Although I am
not a resident here, 25% of what I charge anywhere in the world, whether
it be from concerts or from copyrights, I pay in my country.
And the well-known Spanish jealousy?
Spain
is as it is, and there is no reason to judge it for the passions it
has, nor to take it personally. Like the taxi driver was nasty, so
Paris is awful...No. When you go out, you notice the affection that we
arouse. Those who least like the Spanish are the Spanish themselves.
As a former football player, how goes the selection?
It
gives me great joy when I see Xavi Hernández playing with Xabi Alonso,
Casillas, Ramos, Piqué... And I ask myself: How is it possible that,
knowing that together we win so much, we do not stay together? Spain is
a multicultural country, and it is more than accepted, but united we
are much more effective. I never understood this. And more, since I
live in a country which is rightly called the United States, and which
unites itself in an impressive way when it has to come together.
The melting pot, they say.
We
are the same. We are Jews, Arabs, Celts, Phoenicians... But the
division... No. no and no. That is a lie. And in Spain we are going to
have political problems in that regard. So this brilliant Spanish
sport that we have now should be an example of what the economy and the
social life must be.
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