Extraño

Album: Multitudes (2024)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Extraño" is Spanish for "strange," which is how Alisa Amador often feels. She's a blend of cultures, and her music doesn't fit into a specific category, so she often felt like an outsider. In this song, she comes to terms with that.

    "This song is an important part of my process of learning how to accept myself and love myself as I am, and it is a song that continues to teach me that," she said in a Songfacts interview.
  • "Extraño" is the first song on Amador's debut album, Multitudes. She started releasing music in 2020 but nearly quit two years later when she was struggling to find an audience and the grind was wearing her down. Her big break came that year when she won the NPR Tiny Desk Contest with her song "Milonga accidental." From there, she was off and running, opening on tours for Brandi Carlisle, Hozier, and other big names.

    "It feels like the perfect way to set the tone for the album," she told Songfacts. "As an album that is about acknowledging all of the parts of yourself that can feel like contradictions, or separate, or that they don't fit well into any box."
  • When she performs this song live, Alisa Amador always plays it with "Milonga accidental." She feels the songs share a connection, as they're both about "grappling with identity and feeling out of place."
  • The Guatemalan musician Gaby Moreno sings with Amador on "Extraño." Moreno has a few Latin Grammy Awards to her credit, including one for Best New Artist of 2013.
  • Amador sings in both English and Spanish - "Extraño" is in Spanish. The Multitudes album is an even split, with six songs in English and six in Spanish.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Janis Ian

Janis IanSongwriter Interviews

One of the first successful female singer-songwriters, Janis had her first hit in 1967 at age 15.

Lace the Music: How LSD Changed Popular Music

Lace the Music: How LSD Changed Popular MusicSong Writing

Starting in Virginia City, Nevada and rippling out to the Haight-Ashbury, LSD reshaped popular music.

Jimmy Jam

Jimmy JamSongwriter Interviews

The powerhouse producer behind Janet Jackson's hits talks about his Boyz II Men ballads and regrouping The Time.

Dar Williams

Dar WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

A popular contemporary folk singer, Williams still remembers the sticky note that changed her life in college.

Commercials

CommercialsFact or Fiction

Was "Ring Of Fire" really used to sell hemorrhoid cream?

Reverend Horton Heat

Reverend Horton HeatSongwriter Interviews

The Reverend rants on psychobilly and the egghead academics he bashes in one of his more popular songs.