Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Alamy
Do we have a favorite song, one that could be said to express our deepest emotions of love and longing? One that appeals to listeners of all popular music, from rock, country, jazz, salsa, reggae, and K-pop?
According to one German journalist writing in 2004, there is one song that is “the most played, most sung, most listened to, most recorded, most varied song in world history.” There’s a lot of “most” packed into that sentence, but “La Paloma” checks all the boxes.
Several musicologists claim that it rivals the Beatles’ “Yesterday” as the most recorded song ever. How many times has “La Paloma” been recorded? As popular as “Yesterday” is, it hasn’t been played in weddings in Zanzibar or at funerals in Romania as “La Paloma” has.