Bésame mucho

Consuelo Velázquez wrote Bésame mucho in Mexico around 1940, in her early twenties, and later said she had never been kissed when she composed it; she was training as a concert pianist and used a pseudonym at first, because writing popular songs was thought unsuitable. The opening phrase derives from a passage in Enrique Granados's Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor. Emilio Tuero recorded it in 1941, and the English lyric of 1944 carried it into the American charts. It is among the most recorded songs ever written in Spanish.