Los Kjarkas - Muchacha de Ojos Tristes

Yes, And-ean.

You are not ready for this. You are not ready for the majesty that is Los Kjarkas’ “Muchacha de Ojos Tristes.” Not first thing on a Monday morning, anyway. It’s a little too early for all this majesticity to kick off the work week. But while you may not be ready for this jelly, you can tuck it away and have it on deck for when you need a sweeping epic that grabs you with its talons like an eagle and soars with you over the Andes mountains. Perhaps right before your 10 a.m. Zoom with marketing.

I know nothing about Los Kjarkas, other than these two sentences from Wikipedia:
Los Kjarkas is a Bolivian band from the Capinota province in the department of Cochabamba, and one of the most popular Andean folk music bands in the country's history. Among the styles they play are Saya, tuntuna, huayno, and carnavales.
The instruments they use include the charango, quena, zampoña, ronroco, guitar, and bombo. And now that I’ve read that, I mostly feel ignorant and know less than I did before because other than “Bolivian,” “Andean” and “folk music bands,” I’m not familiar with most of those words. But I know I love this song. I also know you may not be ready for it first thing on a Monday morning.

I literally stumbled into this song about a dozen years ago. Before everything went all algorithm, I think I just fat fingered this track on my phone in iTunes and wound up buying it — or maybe the universe just wanted it in my life. Either way it just appeared in my download library. I don’t understand a word of it (other than the title is “The Girl with Sad Eyes”), but I love it’s grandeur, the instrumentation and especially the band’s gusto during the chorus. Though I’ve never been to Bolivia, this song feels to me what it would be like to gallop on a horse through the Andean mountains. Which would be definitely be better than hanging out on a Zoom call with marketing.

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