Caballo Viejo

Simón Díaz liked to tell the story himself. In 1980 he travelled to the Venezuelan plains to record a programme and met a young woman named Maigualida. By his account, they fell for each other, though only for that moment. That night he began reciting verses to her, and a young man stood up to answer him. What followed was a contrapunteo, the improvised sung duel of the llanos, and it went on for more than an hour. It was a wonderful duel, Díaz remembered, and only afterwards did he learn who his rival was: her boyfriend. The next morning he sat down and wrote Caballo Viejo in a single burst, drawing on that night and the verses he had made for her. The first recording was made by the singer Mirtha Pérez under Díaz's own guidance, and he released it on his 1980 album Golpe y Pasaje. From there the song escaped the plains entirely. It has been translated into twelve languages and recorded around 300 times, by artists as different as Celia Cruz, Julio Iglesias, Rubén Blades, Ry Cooder, Plácido Domingo and Juan Gabriel. A version by Roberto Torres received a Latin Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2007, and the song reached many more ears when the Gipsy Kings folded it into their medley Bamboleo, with Díaz credited as a writer. A verse duel lost to a boyfriend on the llanos became one of the most travelled songs Venezuela has ever produced.