The origin of Amigos, the anthem of Los Enanitos Verdes that Marciano Cantero composed for his son It became a legend and sounds every July 20 and the end of the school year. In 2021 the musician who died on Wednesday told the story of the song

“No matter the place

the sun is always the same

It doesn’t matter if it’s a memory or something that will come

no matter how much there is

in your pockets today

With nothing we have come and we will leave the same

But they will always be in me

Those good times we spent without knowing

That a friend is a light

Shining in the darkness

You will always be my friend

Nothing else matters”.

“Friends” , the song from the album 1992 Same as yesterday, it became an undisputed hymn to friendship. His stanzas sound every July 20, every end of the year, every graduate travel campfire in Bariloche. With the departure of Marciano Cantero, author of the hit and leader of the Mendoza group, the lyrics were resignified.

However, the curious thing is that he did not write it (or not only) thinking about his friends, but about his son, Javier. In 2021 in dialogue with Channel Nine Televida de Mendoza, It was the same author who recalled the reasons that led him to write the theme that, like “I saw you on a train”, “Bolivian regret” and “The green wall”, it became a hit that spanned generations and decades.

“The origin of this song was something very beautiful, because I had just become the father of my son Javier and he was a baby and the feeling he had was very pure and the goal of the song was that as the years passed we would continue to be friends.beyond father and son, we were always friends”, he said and added: “When I started writing the song, I realized that It was daring. I was messing with friendship, which is an absolute good. Fortunately, as the motivation was my son, the purity, the feelings are there, and I never imagined that it would become a kind of hymn to friendship.”

In the interview he said that he was amazed to see that almost three decades later “Amigos” was not only still being heard, but that it was a classic with which thousands of people identified and were moved: “The truth I humbly say that it gives me a beautiful thing. Some time ago walking through Colombia I heard a familiar song and when I approached it, it was a school and they were singing it.

Although his main source of inspiration was his son, he clarified that he also thought of his friends when writing: “I also thought of my friends, because friendship is something that is not exclusively one person, that’s why I say it’s daring. I’m thinking about the moments in life when a friend made you see the future in a more positive way or have hope and It has happened to me many times that my friends have supported me and lifted me up in different cases, that feeling that the last thing you are going to lose is someone’s friendship, it is a treasure.

Although he assured that the career of Los enanitos was based on very hard work and that they had “the fortune to write songs in a neutral Spanish and almost without a marked accent that were understood everywhere”, there is something further: “There is always that thing in the composition, that feeling that comes to you in an instant, that has that naturalness and the words seem exact to you, you didn’t make an effort, you got something from inside”.

At that time, when there were still some closures due to the pandemic and the entire population was just beginning to be vaccinated, Marciano lamented the losses caused by the coronavirus and its consequences: “We are still standing, many were on the way and let us celebrate that we are still alive and we know in our hearts that our friends are with us and we with our friends”.

After the news of Marciano’s death was known, his son Javier, to whom he wrote the legendary song, spoke to the newspaper The Andes: “As much as I am very sad, I look at these 30 years that I was able to spend with him. Every day with him was a gift. I can’t help but be happy for the great man he was and for all the love they gave him back these days.”

“I want to be remembered not only as the composer, the singer and the artist that he was, but also as a wonderful person and my best friend in the world,” he said and about the song that his father made for him, he reaffirmed the musician’s wish : “He always said in interviews that ‘Amigos’ was composed byBecause he wanted his son to be his best friend, and it came true and he knew it, so that leaves me alone.