The death of Diego Armando Maradona this Wednesday at the age of 60 has unleashed a duel so great that it does not fit only on soccer fields.
Disowned for his personal life with the same passion with which he was adored for his skill with the ball, Maradona, the humble neighborhood boy who fulfilled his dream of being the best player in the world, captivated generations of artists with his story.
"I don't care what Diego has done with his life, I care what he did with mine," summarizes a phrase attributed to the Argentine writer Roberto Fontanarrosa that circulates on social networks this Wednesday.
From cumbia to rock and roll, from Rodrigo
El Potro
to Joaquín Sabina, passing through Manu Chao, in
Verne we
compiled ten songs to remember Diez on the day of his death.
1.
Life tombola,
Manu Chao
"If I were Maradona / I would live like him / a thousand rockets, a thousand friends / and whatever comes a thousand percent," the French-Spanish artist Manu Chao sings to Maradona. The song that served as the soundtrack for the documentary in the that Emir Kusturica is looking for Ten in Buenos Aires –and that Manu Chao himself sings to him at the door of his house once Kusturica manages to interview him– summarizes the frenzied life of the player before and after the glory in soccer. goal against 100,000 people as I did against the English was normal for me ”, Maradona manages to say before the camera of the Serbian director and the smile of Manu Chao.
2.
Maradona Blues
, Charly García and Claudio Gabis
Nobody like the pianist and composer Charly García to dedicate a sad blues to Diego Maradona.
"Maradona Blues" is the salute of a reference of Argentine pop culture from the middle of the last century to another, united by knowing both the peak of fame and the darkest days.
“An accident is not a sin / and is it not a sin to be like this?
/ But here I am on this side / that's why let me out / I just want your life ”, García sings to his friend in this song that remains outside of his records.
3.
Maradona
, Andrés Calamaro
At the peak of his popularity, Andrés Calamaro published his great solo album, Honestidad Brutal (1999) with a tribute to his soccer idol.
In “Maradona”, the also singer of Los Rodríguez and Los Abuelos de la Nada says about his great personal friend: "Maradona is not just any person, he is a man attached to a leather ball, he has the heavenly gift of treating very well to the ball, he is a warrior, he is an angel and you can see his wounded wings, it is the Bible next to the water heater, he has a white glove on his foot, on the side of his heart ".
4.
Dieguitos and Mafaldas
, Joaquín Sabina
"From González Catán / in a collective / to the Boca court by lagoon / he is dreaming, today we won the game / the girl with the eyes of the moon", the Spaniard sings about a Boca Juniors fan who travels from her neighborhood Buenos Aires outskirts to the stadium to see his team - and that of Maradona's loves - win.
5.
Forever,
The Paranoid Mice
The so-called "Rolling Stones of Argentina" dedicated in 2000 a special version of their song Forever to Maradona.
Juanse, singer of Los Ratones Paranoicos and a Boca Juniors fanatic jury, says about the idol: "I would like to see Diego forever / dribbling for all eternity / it is true that Diego is the greatest thing there is ..."
6.
Ho Seen Maradona
, Typhosis of the King
In the late eighties, Maradona conquered southern Italy, leading Naples to the summit of European football.
"I've seen Maradona", the fans chanted every time the Diez stepped on the San Paolo stadium.
The Tífosis del Rey quintet –before called Los Capangas–, takes the phrase and adds: Mama / don't you know why my heart beats?
/ He knows why he is / I am in love / I have seen Maradona ”.
7.
Maradó
, Los Piojos
"The bright ball falls from the sky / all the people and everyone sees / a round revenge on his foot / The whole country with him running goes / His majesty's troops fall", Los Piojos sing to commemorate the two goals that Maradona scored in the World Cup in Mexico '86 against England, four years after the Malvinas War.
8.
What is God?
, The pills of the grandpa
"He turned the net into the ground / from the ball he made doves / who landed their peace on Soledad Island / erasing an absurd war", says this 2008 song, perhaps the most melancholic on the list, about the tragic Argentine defeat at the hands of the English in the Malvinas archipelago.
9.
I fire
, Attaque 77
"I have nothing to lose / I am Diego in '86 / I play and I convert by avoiding four / with the same left foot with which I get up," sings the leading punk band of the 2000s in Argentina in this song about make the best of the worst days.
10.
The hand of God
, Rodrigo
"In a village he was born, it was God's desire / to grow and survive humble expression / face adversity / with a desire to earn a living at every step," says the father of the cumbia quartet, Rodrigo El Potro, at the start of the which is perhaps the most important song in the Maradonian collection.
A success that is still danced at parties throughout Argentina and that Rodrigo himself sang to his idol at the beginning of this century while he was undergoing rehabilitation in a Cuban clinic.
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