Mediterráneo is one of the key songs in Joan Manuel Serrat’s career. It is part of the self-titled album that the singer-songwriter released in 1971, which also includes such iconic songs as Aquellas pequeñas cosas and Lucía.
The musician explained in an interview in 2014 that the inspiration to shape this composition came to him while he was abroad and far from the coast. “I was in Mexico, I had been in the interior for weeks. I literally dreamed of him. I took the car and went to a lake, if only to get used to the idea of ??the sea that I longed for. It is in those cases when I realize that for me the sea, and specifically the Mediterranean, is an identity: a happy identity”, he declared in a chat with El País.
In addition, at that time he made it clear that he did not intend to stop including it in his live shows: “I will never, ever, deny this or any other of my songs. I will feel eternally grateful, they are the ones who have made me what I am. So I will always sing it out of obligation, but what is more important, for fun”.
There are different theories about the origin of the Mediterranean. One of them suggests that Serrat would have written it at the end of 1970, when he locked himself up with a group of artists and intellectuals in the Monastery of Montserrat (Barcelona) to protest against the Burgos Process.
Another indicates that the 10 songs on the album were created between August and November of that year in different places, some of them bathed by the Mediterranean, such as Calella de Palafrugell (Gerona). It is also said that the single had other titles in its first drafts: I love the sea and Son of the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean album was re-released on vinyl for its 50th anniversary in 2021. Sony Music states that the singer-songwriter closed the album in a studio in Milan (Italy) and talks about the “creative miracle that took place that summer in a hotel in Calella de Palafrugell “.
Joan Manuel Serrat retired from the stage after finishing an extensive tour called El vicio de cantar. His last concert took place on December 23, 2022 at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, ??where attendees were able to listen to, among many others, Mediterranean.
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