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Cuando salí de Cuba – The exile anthem that touches millions of hearts
Some melodies carry the weight of a broken homeland – "Cuando salí de Cuba" is one such song. Anyone who listens to this bittersweet masterpiece and gets goosebumps will sense just a hint of what a Cuban exile feels when these notes resonate: an aching mixture of melancholy, longing, and never-ending hope.
Luis Aguilé , an Argentinian with the heart of a cosmopolitan, composed a ballad in the mid-1960s that became the voice of an entire people in exile. Although he himself was never forced to leave Cuba , with this anthem he spoke to the hearts of those whose lives were split in half—before and after their escape. "I left Cuba—but my heart remained there." This line is more than a poetic image—it is a collective pain, set to music with unforgettable tenderness.
Aguilé, who wrote over 400 songs and recorded over 700, was a musical chronicler of emotions. He died in Madrid in 2009, but "Cuando salí de Cuba" lives on – as an eternal anthem of hope, a musical journey home for those who have never forgotten their roots. For Cuban exiles, this song is not a song – it is a memory, an identity, a promise.
The recording presented here from the 1975 Spanish television show Musical Mallorca shows Aguilé at the height of his artistic creativity – full of dignity, with shining eyes, as if he knew that this melody means more to many than words could ever express.
The Tremeloes —who remembers?—turned 'Cuando sali de Cuba' into the feel-good song 'Once On A Sunday Morning,' which, however, failed to chart in either the British or German charts.
