Super-turística [click here for full lyrics]

The love versus money theme is extended and embellished in González' brilliant "Super-turística". It's worth learning Spanish for this song alone. After a fascinating horn intro belying González' jazz background, the cuerpo begins as a typical love story, with Michel courting a beautiful Cubana he encounters in the Miramar neighborhood of Havana. When he gets around to asking her out in the second verse, she informs him that she's only interested in going to the fanciest clubs in town ("La Marina, La Cecilia, o La Maison"), where the cover charge exceeds the monthly salary of the average Cuban brain surgeon. [audio example 9] This limits her romantic possibilities to tourists (and, ironically, Timba musicians, although the song doesn't take this into account!) and sets the stage for the hilarious and biting social commentary of the coros and guías.

The first set of coros ends with "no me la pinten tan mala que esa turista de Buena Vista es una linda Cubana" and the horns follow it up with a witty musical quote from the Cuban standard "Tres Lindas Cubanas". The listener is then jolted out of this brief journey into the musical past by a brilliant chromatic modulation into D minor, and pure Timba, for the classic coro: "darling, darling, tú eres la turista, la de Buena Vista". [audio example 10]

Like "Nube Pasajera" this arrangement uses the innovative idea of introducing a coro with a specially-written extended guía. The bass drops out dramatically and Michel sings "no tengo cifra ni cuenta, para tu imaginación, yo sé que no te interesa mami, pero préstale atención", leading into the last coro, "yo no tengo lo que tú necesitas, pero tengo lo que quiere fefita azuquita" ("I don't have what you need, but I have what you want"), perfectly tying together and concluding the lyrical as well as the musical themes of the track. [audio example 11]