Linda Ronstadt Shares Songs of the Southwest: The Stories Behind Her Hits

Jim Farber

Fri, September 9, 2022 at 10:00 AM UTC

10 min read

These are the traditional songs she fondly remembers hearing and singing with her family.

These songs, some available on Linda Ronstadt’s new album, Feels Like Home: Songs From the Sonoran Borderlands—Linda Ronstadt’s Musical Odyssey, are among the traditional tunes she fondly remembers hearing and singing with her family.

The Stories Behind Linda Ronstadt's Favorite Songs

“El Sueño” (the dream)

“My brothers, Peter and Mike, sang this beautiful huapango folk song with me on my record Mas Canciones. We learned the harmonies as kids from a record by Trío Tariácuri, three brothers who were beloved musicians in Mexico for decades, starting in the 1930s.”

“I Never Will Marry”

“Dolly Parton and I both love this song and recorded it together. According to Ronstadt family rules, this was my sister’s song, because she was the first of us to sing it. But Suzy married three times, so it became mine.”

Related: Who Is Dolly Parton's Husband?

“El Crucifijo de Piedra” (the stone crucifix)

“I learned this huapango from the version sung by Miguel Aceves Mejía, the ranchera idol and actor. In it, an abandoned lover stands alone and crying in front of a church, so sad that the crucified Christ cries too. It’s one of the most beautiful songs in the literature.”

“Lo Siento Mi Vida” (I’m sorry my love)

“Kenny Edwards [a longtime band member] and I wrote this with my dad. Kenny wanted it to be all in Spanish, but after he wrote the first line, we needed help for the rest. We told my dad what we wanted to say, and the song came together in a three-way phone conversation.”

“Old Paint”

“We always used to sing this old cowboy song as kids. We never heard it on a record; it was just there, in the air. ‘The song smells of saddle leather,’ Carl Sandburg wrote of it in his 1927 folk-music anthology, The American Songbag. He said it came ‘from a buckaroo who was last heard of as heading for the border with friends in both Tucson and El Paso.’ For my version on the record Simple Dreams, I played guitar myself, in my uniquely incompetent style.”

“La Calandria” (the songbird)

“This is a naughty song that Peter, Mike and I used to sing. It made us giggle. Singing it in Spanish somehow made it seem not quite as dirty, with its lines about love and women’s petticoats and things that happen in men’s undershorts.”

“Y Andale” (get on with it)

“I recorded this with my niece Mindy when she was 15. She sang it so well, with lovely innocence, even though it’s about drunken debauchery. Our version was a hit in Mexico City.”

“Ragtime Cowboy Joe”

“We kids used to sing this in three-part harmony in the car. Our mom would sing it with us too. I didn’t hear a recording of it until I was an adult. I like the version by the Sons of the Pioneers.”

“A la Orilla de un Palmar” (at the edge of a palm grove)

“This is one of those songs that’s a time tunnel back to childhood, with Peter, Suzy, Mike and me singing in the back seat of the family car, or in the kitchen, our hands in the dishwater. Mike also sang it in a trio with our cousins John and Bill. It’s about a poor orphan alone in the world.”

“Blue Shadows”

“Peter learned this cowboy song in his boys’ chorus and then taught it to our brother Mike and our cousins John and Bill. Those three performed often as the Ronstadt Cousins, and this song was a good showcase for the family blend of voices.”

“Canadian Moon”

My brother Mike wrote and recorded this with his band, Ronstadt Generations. It’s my favorite song of his. It came to him in Canada, naturally, where everything is so green and lush it can make a homesick Tucsonan cry. This song shows the hold the desert can have on you.”

“Barrio Viejo” (old neighborhood)

“The great Chicano bandleader and songwriter Lalo Guerrero never forgot how Tucson bulldozed and buried his old neighborhood in the 1960s, in the name of urban renewal. In 1990, this song brought it back to life. He was in his 70s then, still working at the top of his talent, and this may be his greatest song.”

“Los Chucos Suaves” (the cool dudes)

“This song was a hit in the 1940s, when Lalo was in his prime as a bandleader. The trumpet player and piano player on his recording of this song—about young, hip Chicanos in Los Angeles dancing and getting drunk—are particularly skilled.”

“La Burrita” (the little donkey)

I never heard this on a record when I was little; I knew it from singing it myself and having it sung to me—including once by Lalo and my dad serenading me on my 3rd birthday in the traditional Mexican way, at 2 in the morning.”

“Adonde Voy” (Where am I going?)

“Tish Hinojosa, the Texas singer and songwriter, wrote this song about hope, love and loneliness. A fugitive on the run from immigration misses home and worries about a lover left behind. I sang it on a record called Winter Light.”

“Dreams of the San Joaquin”

“This is about a migrant worker in the San Joaquin Valley in Dust Bowl days—a song of desperate times in a beautiful, bountiful land. Jack Wesley Routh and Randy Sharp wrote it, and a Ronstadt family chorus joined me on the record [We Ran]: my siblings, Suzy, Peter and Mike; my cousins Johnny and Bill; and my niece Mindy.”

“Flor Silvestre” (wild flower)

“It’s hard to describe the way the great Trío Calaveras sing an old folk tune like this. They have such beautiful harmonies. When the indigenous rhythm of the huapango meets the almost military precision of their joined voices, the effect is mystical.”

“Por un Amor” (for a love)

“I adore Lucha Reyes’ version of this song. She was the first of Mexico’s great women ranchera singers, and she has not been matched. She started out as an opera singer but damaged her vocal cords and lost her operatic voice. It became husky—perfect for ranchera music.”

“Cucurrucucú Paloma” (the cooing dove)

“This is Lola Beltrán’s signature song. It’s gorgeous and full of passion, and she sings it to perfection. Like many huapangos, there’s a lot of falsetto in it, which is hard to do. A song like this is usually sung by a man, but Lola proved that women can sing falsetto beautifully too.”

“La Mariquita” (the ladybug)

“Amalia Mendoza, sister to the members of Trío Tariácuri, was considered the most musically precise of the ranchera singers. She was known for this traditional song. It’s similar in its rhythm pattern to a huapango. The singer asks a young woman, the little ladybug, to ‘cover me with your shawl, because I’m freezing to death.’”

“Paloma Negra” (black dove)

“If I had heard Chavela Vargas sing this ranchera song or anything else when I was growing up, I would have changed my whole singing style. Songwriters loved her because she was so musical—she could interpret a song just as they had intended it, with its full emotional reading. Her version of this sorrowful song is unbeatable. She owns it.”

“Malagueña Salerosa” (enchanting woman from Málaga)

“Here’s another thrilling huapango, romantic and passionate. The Trío Calaveras sang it beautifully. It can be hard to pull off, with all its falsetto parts, but my brother Peter did it well.”

“Plegaría Guadalupana” (Guadalupe prayer)

“The Trío Tariácuri’s vocal style was featured beautifully in their recording of this song. It reflects many Mexicans’ devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who by Catholic tradition appeared to the peasant Juan Diego in 1531. (You don’t often hear the backstory: that Juan Diego was actually an Aztec priest, and that the spot where he claimed to have seen the Virgin had once been a shrine to Tonantzin, the Aztecs’ Mother Earth, who made the corn grow. In other words, Mexico’s patron saint is an indigenous goddess in disguise, which is why I love her.)”

“El Camino” (the path)

“This one’s sort of spooky. The Trío Tariácuri sing it in a yodeling falsetto style. It’s about traveling long distances through the night on horseback, and the daunting things you encounter. Their voices sound mysterious, almost supernatural.”

“El Hielo (ICE)”

“This song is by a Los Angeles band I love, La Santa Cecilia. Its lead singer, La Marisoul, has the most interesting voice I’ve heard in years. The title is a play on words: ‘Hielo’ is Spanish for ‘ice,’ and ICE is the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The song is a sensitive representation of the true human cost of unfair immigration laws.”

“Sonora Querida” (beloved Sonora)

“Los Cenzontles recorded this with David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. Many consider it the unofficial state song of Sonora.”

“Ojitos Negros” (little black eyes)

“Los Cenzontles sang this traditional Mexican song on their 2008 album, Songs of Wood and Steel, and then again on San Patricio, a 2010 album by the Chieftains and Ry Cooder. Their a cappella treatment is amazingly rich and pure.”

“La Manta” (the blanket), “Arenita Azul” (blue sands), “El Torero” (the bullfighter), “Naninan Upirin” (How will I do it)

“These four traditional songs are part of the repertoire of Los Cenzontles’ youth group, Los Cenzontles Juvenil, made up of kids age 8 to 16. They start young, absorbing deep traditions and rhythms, and learning to sing in both Spanish and Mexican indigenous languages, of which there are 68. They can really play. ‘La Manta’ is a son jarocho from Veracruz; ‘Arenita Azul’ is a chilena from Oaxaca; ‘El Torero’ is a son abajeño from Jalisco; and ‘Naninan Upirin’ is a son abajeño from the P’urhépecha indigenous people living in the Michoacán region.”

“The Dreamer”

“When I introduced Jackson Browne to Eugene Rodriguez and his cultural organization Los Cenzontles, I felt they would hit it off. Jackson and Eugene soon teamed up to write this beautiful song, about a family divided by the border and our unjust immigration laws.”

“Somebody Please”

“This soulful lowrider standard from the late ’60s was made popular by Manuel (Big Manny) Gonzales, who had a band in East L.A. called the Blazers. He was a really good singer. In 2021, Los Cenzontles, La Marisoul and David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos sang it as a tribute to Big Manny, who died in 2016.”

“Los Hermanos” (the brothers)

“This is an example of how Los Cenzontles reaches out to the greater community—in this case the San Francisco Symphony. Sometimes when you load classical players onto traditional songs and styles, it doesn’t quite work, but this collaboration was very successful. I admire the way Los Cenzontles can find ways to build on and revitalize old traditions, as in this song about the bonds that connect migrants of many countries, united by the perilous journey north to the United States: ‘I have so many brothers that I can’t count them all.’”

“Voy Caminando” (I go walking)

“Eugene Rodriguez wrote this song about a migrant’s journey toward his dream. ‘Tomorrow I go walking / There is nothing more for me here / That is why I am looking / For my future on the horizon.’ The rhythm is provided by the dancers’ feet.”

“La Pelota” (the ball)

“Eugene also wrote this political tune, disguising it as a song about soccer. The ball is a metaphor for how Mexican Americans are kicked this way and that, side to side, up and down, by politicians and others who take them for granted. It’s a great song, and I love its driving rhythm.”

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