Every ranchera Vicente Fernández sings is ultimately about Mexico. The title track of his 1974 album El Hijo del Pueblo (Song of the People), for example, recounts an impoverished life with the dignified vocal authority of an operatic tenor. Nostalgia suffuses both the cowboy-culture romance of "Mi Amigo el Tordillo" (My Dappled Friend) and "Cuando Yo Quería Ser Grande" (When I Wanted to Grow Up), a song about holding on to the past no matter what.