“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
“I am a bit of a romantic fabulist,” says the venerable Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in her new memoir, “Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo.”
When we meet, she’s standing amid the shelves of Libros Schmibros, a Latino lending library in the heart of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, leering at the stacks of books from authors exhibiting the vast range of experiences and perspectives across the Latin American diaspora. Venegas is now adding her voice to this shared-but-fractured written history; albeit, not entirely on purpose.
Inspired by writing classes she took during the pandemic, Venegas began by drafting personal essays before losing interest and going back to her day job.
“I just wanted to do another record,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really interested in my own memoir.”
She soon realized that her new songs were beginning to parrot the themes and stories of those essays. The result is not only her first book, but also her 10th full-length LP, “Norteña,” which comes out on Friday.
“I realized I was actually inventing my own musical memoir. So I thought it made sense to actually do [both projects] together.”
In combination, the two projects serve as a chronicle of Venegas’ path in becoming one of pop music’s great observers of love. Each is centered around her first love: her hometown of Tijuana, and its essential place in her journey. “I was reading a lot of writers from Baja California, writers from Tijuana. This whole project was my way of coming back. I hadn’t realized it when I started, but I was thinking about Tijuana. I was thinking about Baja California.”
Julieta Venegas performs at Bésame Mucho at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3, 2022.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
The “Norteña” projects highlight the grit and glamour of life between borders. “So far from God, and yet so close to the United States” is how Venegas describes it. The book provides a snapshot of her family’s life bouncing between homes on both sides, and the process of transculturation that resulted. The joy and vivacity of watching shows and making trouble with boys in Tijuana juxtaposed with the sterile scenes of driving the 5 Freeway north : “smooth and flawless, devoid of people or nature, of music or food.”
The one constant, however, was the music — whether it was attending concerts by Mano Negra and the Sugarcubes or listening to buskers performing José José karaoke at the border crossing. Most vivid are the stories of her family singing together so frequently that the sound became as essential to the Pacific Ocean backdrop as palm trees.
Venegas lauds her mother for “moving through life with joy and a melody,” and as a source of encouragement. She also credits her mother for the pivot she made from alterna-rocker to pop hitmaker in the 2000s: “Deep down, I wanted to write songs that my mother would enjoy,” she said.
Of the new album, one of its highlights is the buoyant corrido “Terca,” which elaborates on a short story in the memoir about Venegas’ move to Mexico City. Bouncing around on a well-worn 6/8 time signature, Venegas recounted her low point living in the Mexican capital — homesick, confused, unsure of whether she could make a living as a musician — and contemplated moving back to Tijuana, to which her mom said, “You’ve already flown; don’t look back.”
Venegas characterizes it as emblematic of her constant need to move and change, or her “stubborn way of living.” But her mother’s affirmation remains the thread connecting both works.
By contrast, her father’s hypervigilance also underlies the narrative. Venegas recounts fighting her father’s attempts at discipline for typical youthful transgressions, such as the time he caught her and her twin sister, Yvonne, kissing their boyfriends, for which he punished them by making them transcribe a taped lecture on the dangers of premarital sex.
Asked about the memoir’s portrayal of her father as the strict disciplinarian, Venegas calls him “the perfect example of a Mexican dad in every sense,” who has softened as he’s aged — and whom she understands better herself after raising a now-teenage daughter. He also provides the book’s most poignant scene, in which he gifts teenage Julieta sole possession of the family piano, thereby allowing her to practice playing at any time — even as her siblings performed the daily household chores around her.
But Venegas’ parents were artists above all — photographers specifically, a trade now plied by Yvonne — and as such, romantics at heart and in practice. The album’s closer, “Te Celebramos,” is a rollicking slice of norteño pop framed around her father’s birthday party and the story of how her parents met; but it is really a celebration of the power that music can provide as a reconciliation of family unity. As she says in her book: “I want[ed] to convey the spirit that my relationship with music has bestowed upon me … to construct something like a photo album — like so many others sitting on the shelves in my parents’ home — something that remains archived there.”
While the memoir provides the lore behind Venegas’ latest artistic turn, “Norteña” the album finds her digging deeper into her instincts. Although her previous album, the Álex Anwandter-produced 2022 “Tu Historia,” was her most acclaimed album in decades (including a Latin Grammy win for contemporary pop album), its South American pop-influenced sound is a far cry from where Venegas felt her music needed to go.
“I was completely immersed in the whole idea that I didn’t realize that I really just wanted to go back to Mexico,” she said. “I wanted to record it in Mexico. I wanted to have Mexican guests and everything. And it took me a long time to realize that.”
Much like the bleachers at Dodger Stadium, “Norteña” is, just as promised, loaded with Mexicans — including Yahritza y Su Esencia, Café Tacvba’s Meme del Real and El David Aguilar (who co-wrote many songs on the album). Venegas’ close friend and protégé, Natalia Lafourcade, also appears in the duet “Tengo Que Contarte.”
Out of the prerelease singles, the Yahritza-featuring “La Línea” has received the most buzz due to its topicality. A story about a migrant couple separated at the border, it’s not the first time that Venegas has written about headline news (“Explosión” and “Mujeres,” among others), but she’s rarely been this direct on a political issue.
“I wanted to express the emotional part of [family separation]. I wasn’t trying to be political,” said Venegas of the song, also expressing her shock when Yahritza Martinez revealed her own family’s personal history with the subject matter.
From a sonic angle, the song most emblematic of Venegas’ ethos is “Volver a Ti,” which she forged with grupero icon Bronco. She wrote the song as a genre exercise with Bronco in mind. After years of sketches, she was emboldened to finish the song after running into front man Lupe Esparza at 2022’s Bésame Mucho festival, who encouraged her to send a demo.
The finished track is the centerpiece of “Norteña” — a song that marries Venegas’ pop sensibilities and signature lovelorn lyrics with an authentic northern Mexican song. It’s the type of song that probably sounds best coming out of the tinny speakers of a 1992 hatchback, and that’s frankly one of the highest compliments you can give to a grupero banger.
But ultimately, all proverbial roads lead back to Tijuana. Venegas saves her most cinematic imagery to describe the golden age and modern romance of the Border City; from the fanciful waltz of “Esquina del Mar” (“I want to set foot on my land again, barefoot, and stay there again, to find you at the corner of the sea”) to the Technicolor cumbia of “Leyendas de Tijuana” (“I want to see you in your glory days, walk through your golden streets; I want to see people arriving, crossing everything just for you”). Venegas clearly loves these spaces and history, whether based in real life or in notoriety.
(Carlin Stiehl / For De Los)
And that’s where the “Norteña” projects ultimately succeed. They’re twin portraits of an artist delving into the origin of her modus operandi. Venegas has spent almost 30 years writing love stories. “Some beautiful, others sad and desolate. Beginnings, ending, the in-betweens. Seeking to understand where it came from, asking how long it has been there,” she mused.
“Norteña” is the first time she’s explicitly looked backward, with the cultural weight and sounds of northern Mexico behind her. And for longtime fans, it’s a rare peek behind the curtain. “This whole project was slow-cooked,” she explained. “That’s the way I want to do things now. Maybe [I’ll] think about a theme … and [write] the songs and [write] a text about it, even if it doesn’t become a book. This might become a part of my creative process.”
At this point, Venegas briefly glances at the rows of books inside the lending library, as if contemplating the vastness of human creativity. When it comes to whatever is next, she’s resolved: “I’ll take my time.”
