Siboney, also known as Canto Siboney, is a 1927 song by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona.
Siboney was part of the 1927 revue La Tierra de Venus, which featured singer Rita Montaner. The music is in cut time, originally written in C major. The lyrics were reportedly written by Lecuona while away from Cuba and is about the homesickness he was experiencing. The term Siboney refers to one of the indigenous tribes that inhabited Cuba before the arrival of the Spanish colonists and acts as a symbol for the island. Siboney is both the name of a coastal village in Eastern Cuba and of a neighbourhood in the Playa borough of Havana. Siboney became a hit in 1931 when performed by Alfredo Brito and his Siboney Orchestra. Other artists followed suit, including Caterina Valente, Dizzy Gillespie, Nana Mouskouri and Percy Faith. It was recorded by Connie Francis in 1960. An English version of the song was also recorded by Bing Crosby.The song inspired the Mexican-Cuban film Siboney, directed by Juan Orol and starring María Antonieta Pons. The song has an appeared in many movies such as the 1931 film Tarnished Lady, 2046 and Michael Bay's 2005 sci-fi dystopian film The Island. It was also used by Nino Rota in the score for Fellini's nostalgic memoir of the 1930’s.
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado (1895-1963) was a Cuban composer of Spanish Heritage. Lecuona graduated from the National Conservatory of Havana when he was only sixteen. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for stage and film, which regularly used stylistic combinations of Spanish Zarzuela, Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythmic patterns. In 1960, thoroughly unhappy with Castro's new régime, Lecuona moved to Tampa, Florida and lived his final years in the USA. He died 3 years later at the age 68; his will instructs that his remains be repatriated back to Cuba once the current régime runs its course.
