“Smooth” by Santana

song info

    “Smooth” by Santana (official video) is a Latin rock song.

    
    U.S. Billboard Hot 100: peak #1 (one), 1999
    Alternative: peak #24, 1999
    Mainstream Rock: peak #10 (ten), 1999
    Pop: peak #1 (one), 1999
    Adult Pop: peak #1 (one), 1999
    Adult Contemporary: peak #11 (eleven), 1999
     Billboard chart listings courtesy of Billboard Magazine

link to the static song information page for this song:
http://www.thissideofsanity.com/music/songs/sm/smooth.php

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Smooth” is a collaboration between Latin rock band Santana and Rob Thomas of the rock group Matchbox Twenty. The song was written by Thomas and Itaal Shur, sung by Thomas, produced by Matt Serletic and won three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

Concept and background

    “Smooth” was originally conceived by Shur as a song called “Room 17”. The lyrics were stripped off and the track was given to Thomas, who re-wrote the lyrics and melody and re-titled it “Smooth”, then recorded the song as a demo to play for Santana. This song was originally written to describe an acquaintance of Thomas’, John Bizanes, who is… very “smooth”. However, over time credit for this inspiration has been given to Thomas’ wife, Marisol Maldonado. After hearing the song, Santana decided to have Thomas record the final version.[1] Matt Serletic (who produced Matchbox Twenty’s debut album Yourself or Someone Like You) produced the song and it was released from Santana’s album Supernatural.

    Thomas wrote “Smooth” for his wife, Marisol Maldonado. He stated in interviews that the lyric “My Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa” was inspired by the 1972 Elton John song “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”, which includes references to the 1961 Ben E. King song “Spanish Harlem”.

—from Wikipedia (the Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License applies to Wikipedia’s block of text and possible accompanying picture, along with any alterations, transformations, and/or building upon Wikipedia’s original text that ThisSideofSanity.com applied to this block of text)

Proverb:

If you would build something solid, don’t work with wind; always look for a fixed point, something you know that is stable … yourself. —Proverb of the Inner Temple of Luxor