Es que me la lleva

Ay, Manolín! Amusingly-enigmatic, genius coro-writer that he may be, Manolín has one truly horrible habit which defies explanation and drives even his staunchest defender (I believe that would be me) completely nuts. It's nothing new...he's done it since the beginning of his career -- which makes it even more bizarre that no one has convinced him to stop! He introduces almost every song by singing part of it -- sometimes almost all of it -- unaccompanied -- rushing through it like a tape recorder on fast forward -- out of tune, out of time, and usually in the wrong key! When Issac or Paulito introduces a live number in this way you can always hear them first call out to the pianist and say something along the lines of "Melón -- dame el tono", which is to say, they ask the pianist to play the first chord of the song so when they finish the a capella rendition, the band will enter in the same key. Es que me la lleva, in the key of Ab, begins at 0:27, after Manolín's introduction, which, like most of his introductions, is somewhere in the greater metropolitan area of G major. Ouch! The dramatic key change that worked so well in the opening number isn't so effective here!

Es que me la lleva is the only one of the four unreleased songs which wasn't played regularly in Cuban concerts before Manolín's defection, and sounds like some of the lighter material from "Para mi gente" when the band was going through its Colombian phase.