Sunny's Sundays
I created a content planner for myself to plan ahead which content I'm publishing, not only to get in a decent routine to work ahead as much as possible but also to prep for the very long summer holidays of 12 weeks my daughter will have in less than four weeks. For the Sunday I chose the topic "Sunny's Sundays". This can be all sorts of content to be honest, a walk in the sun or on the beach, or something connected to summertime, you name it.
Why Sunny's? I have Sunshine as a discord nickname, that's why. Today's topic for my post simply came to life because I was enjoying the sun outside and listening to this track, bringing up memories from our emigration preparation in 2022. I remember how determined I was to make the emigration happen, the summer music I listened to every day surely helped me with that positive mood and mindset. When I have a lot of inspiration and want to keep my flow to write, I put on these happy Spanish songs to make sure I keep going. Maybe you recognize this, not per se with Spanish songs but with other music that gives you good vibes.
Spanish music
I have to confess that I've been a fan of Spanish summer hits for a long time but I never really kept track of the latest and greatest for some years. I did when we lived in Spain for 14 months before moving to Budapest, but then I lost touch with it. Not because I was all into Hungarian music suddenly but simply because the mood declined quite a bit in these few years living there. I had to remind myself at some point to play more music. I started playing a lot of music from the moment we decided to move back to Spain and make it happen. It was all part of the pre-fun, listening to Spanish music and dreaming about living at the coast, driving around in a car with the music loud open, happy vibes!
Things never work out exactly as planned
This was not any different for us moving to the coast we picked. What we saw online and how reality is, is nothing alike. But in 3 days it's been a year since we landed on Spanish soil and although we had many things not going smoothly, I would not go back even if someone paid me a million bucks. My happiness is worth much more to me than all the money in the world. I could not live there anymore now that I felt how it is to live here again.
Before, we ended up in the Granada area, it was all different in terms of climate and not having the sea as close as we do now, but also because there we didn't have a car either. Life becomes so much better once you have your own wheels. I really feel so much happier now that we can escape the house, even if it's just to drive around a bit because this car costs so little to drive. It's been more than a month since we filled up the tank and it's probably going to last 2 more weeks, so we often go for a drive without any plans just to be out and about.
Practicing Spanish
We prepared a bit by committing to Spanish learning with the Duolingo app but I mostly turned to Spanish music that gave me happy vibes. Not only listened to it and tried to sing along but also found the Spanish lyrics to see how the words they were singing were written. I learned quite a bit from doing this to be honest as I learned to understand pronunciation a lot better by doing so.
When we were driving around in the car listening to Spanish music in Hungary, the months before we gave away our car, my boyfriend often looked at me wondering how I learned to sing along this fast. Granted, I often didn't know the exact meaning at first, lol. Singing along songs is something I've done my whole life, I used to get comments about the fact that I knew all the lyrics even in my childhood. Guess even in Spanish, this is no different. I love the language, it sounds so much nicer and I can't wait until I speak it fluently!
Spanish songs and their meanings
A big plus of hunting for the lyrics is that I would notice certain inappropriate language (for kids I mean) so we could avoid listening to it in the car because this little girl of ours is like a sponge. I remember we listened to some Spanish / Dutch hits my boyfriend found somewhere, but I didn't know the artist and it took me a bit to find who it was. When I did I told him to ditch a few of these songs she was singing along because of the meaning, lol.
One of my favorite hits
Is this song "Echame la culpa" by Luis Fonsi and Demi Lovato. The first thing a song needs to grab my attention is a great beat, a bit that's uptempo and automatically makes you want to shake your hips while singing it. Over the years, I've noticed that all the songs that trigger that feeling, give me an overall happy vibe. It's not about the meaning of the lyrics, to be honest, I mean just think back about many top 40 hits over the past decades, the beat and the music are usually what makes it a hit if you ask me. I think many lyrics of the best summer hits are not that great in meaning but they just work really well and give people a holiday feeling.
If you're curious about the lyrics to sing along to this song, click here. Here's the English translation in case you're wondering.
And with this, I will end my post and continue listening to some other music giving me happy vibes and maybe convince my boyfriend to go out for tapas in a few hours.
Have a lovely evening!
As someone who is fluent in the language (Spanish, natively), to see how you have developed the importance, characteristics and give your own perspective on it, I find it moving and fascinating. While I'm not a big supporter of the kind of commercial music produced and made in Spanish, there are fascinating exceptions and artists who are, in my opinion, overwhelmingly transcendent in every way. Anyway, what a beautiful post you have done. My respects, @thisismylife
I used Music as well to get into the rhythm, just not that happy Sunny stuff but I loved Amaral & Calle Paris
That is also sort of Sunny
I like that as well! I listen to all kinds of music lol .. I can appreciate a lot of styles..