Home · Songs · La Vela Puerca · José sabía
From album
De bichos y flores
La Vela Puerca · 2001 · Track 10
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The story behind
The first time I heard José sabía, I was hooked by that rhythm that doesn’t sound like anything I’d heard before. It’s not a song that sticks in your head because of a catchy melody, but rather because of how the band makes every instrument — from the trumpets to the bass — feel like it’s telling its own story. There’s something about the way La Vela Puerca blends ska with rock that makes the song memorable without needing explosive choruses. The sound of the trombones, for example, isn’t just decoration: it’s as if each note breathes alongside the rest, creating an atmosphere that feels closer to a sunset on the Uruguayan coast than to a studio-recorded song.
The story behind José sabía begins long before the album existed. In 1995, La Vela Puerca formed in Montevideo with Sebastián Teysera, “el Enano,” at the helm, and from the start, they sought a sound that mixed rock with Caribbean rhythms and lyrics that spoke of everyday life without being obvious. Their first work, Deskarado, came out thanks to a local contest and ended up catching the attention of Claudio Taddei, who shaped it in the studio. But what’s interesting is that the song itself wasn’t born on that album: it emerged during the tours they did in the summer of ’98, when they played at Montevideo’s Teatro de Verano and even opened for Los Piojos. By then, they already had a gold record in hand, but something bigger was still missing. It was Gustavo Santaolalla who, by remixing Deskarado and re-releasing it in 1999 under the Surco/Universal label, opened the doors to Argentina for them. There, during the “Girafónica” tour of the summer of 2000, the band discovered they could connect with audiences who didn’t know their music. After that came De bichos y flores, recorded between Buenos Aires and Los Angeles in 2001, but José sabía had already been resonating in their shows for years, like a song the band played without knowing it would end up being part of their DNA.