Caetano Veloso - "Cucurrucucú Paloma". Taken directly from the audio track of Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con Ella, so enjoy the occasional clinking of glasses. The song is about a man whose lover has somehow injured him or possibly left him for reasons beyond her control. His subsequent mourning drives him to drink and later, to his own death ["They say that at night he didn't do anything but cry. They that he didn't eat and didn't do anything but drink. They swear that heaven shuddered when it heard his cry. How he suffered for her, calling out to her even as he died!"]. Over the exhales of a cello and the hushed vigil of the guitar, his voice sighs "Ay, ay, ay, ay!" as he dies of una pasión mortal.

The singer recounts the legend: every morning a dove comes to sing at the woman's lonely little house with its little doors wide open ["They swear that the dove is actually his soul that is still waiting for her to come back—her, the unfortunate."]. With the most gorgeous and haunting falsetto, Veloso coos the dove's weary cry for his love.

I heard this for the first time the other night while watching the movie. I was talking to my friend as the scene came on, and my sentence just trailed off and I was completely arrested by the sound and the story. If you're even slightly weepy, I'd be careful. You'll be hanging over your knees and throwing the windows open after hearing this one.

CUCURRUCUCÚ PALOMA
by Tomás Méndez -

Dicen que por las noches no más se le iba en puro llorar.
Dicen que no comía, no más se le iba en puro tomar.
Juran que el mismo cielo se estremecía al oír su llanto.
Cómo sufría por ella, que hasta en su muerte la fue llamando!

"Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay", cantaba.
"Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay", gemía.
"Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay", cantaba.
De pasión mortal moría.

Que una paloma triste muy de mañana le va a cantar
a la casita sola con sus puertitas de par en par.
Juran que esa paloma no es otra cosa más que su alma,
que él todavía la espera a que regrese, la desdichada.

Cucurrucucú, paloma,
cucurrucucú, no llores.
Las piedras jamás, paloma,
qué van a saber de amores?

Cucurrucucú, cucurrucucú,
cucurrucucú, paloma,
ya no le llores.