1995: Hey Macarena!
One Year
Slate Podcasts
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the mid-1990s, a bilingual pop song brought a huge amount of joy to a huge number of people. And then, very quickly, the Macarena became a cultural pariah.
This episode of One Year was produced by Evan Chung, Madeline Ducharme, and Josh Levin. Additional production help from Cheyna Roth. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening ad-free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:04.4 | What's the story of where your name came from? |
| 0:08.2 | So, like, my mom and her sisters, they're Maria Clarissa, Maria Angelica, Maria de la Luce. |
| 0:14.7 | So my dad was like, we're not doing that. |
| 0:17.8 | And apparently they knew somebody with this name. And they were like, |
| 0:22.5 | oh, she's like independent and classy. And, you know, this is a good name for our daughter. |
| 0:31.3 | My name is Macarena. Macarena, Luce Bianchi. It's a great name. |
| 0:38.3 | Thank you. |
| 0:44.3 | Macarena was born in Chile, but her name comes from Spain. |
| 0:50.5 | It's a district in the city of Seville, which is home to the Basilica de la Macarena. |
| 0:56.6 | That Catholic temple is a showcase for a local treasure, a statue of the Weeping Virgin Mary. |
| 0:58.6 | La Virgen of La Macarena is the patron saint of bullfighting in Seville. |
| 1:05.3 | As a little girl in Chile, Macarena-loose Bianchi went by a nickname, Maka. When her family moved to Miami in Chile, Macarena-Los Bianchi went by a nickname, Maka. |
| 1:12.0 | When her family moved to Miami in 1982, she started hearing a bunch of other things. |
| 1:18.7 | Macarena or Macarena, that's what people called me. |
| 1:22.5 | Or they would really best pronounce it. |
| 1:24.3 | Maserina was when I'm like, no, that's not it. |
| 1:29.5 | So it defaulted to Mac, |
| 1:36.7 | like for a long time. In school, it was like, of course, macaroni and Big Mac. |
| 1:43.8 | Despite those schoolyard taunts, Macarena never thought about changing her name. |
| 1:48.6 | Not at all. I loved it. Nobody here had it, which I thought was fantastic. |
| 1:52.0 | So I like that it was rare. |
... |
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