I press play on our next number one, and I start to feel the bile rising the second Enrique Iglesias whispers: Let me be your hero…

Hero, by Enrique Iglesias (his 1^st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 27^th January – 24^th February 2002

I’ve never liked this song, right from the time it was spending an interminable month on top of the charts. There may be external reasons for this hate, which we’ll get to shortly, but even before those external reasons came along I thought this was overwrought garbage. It feels like a leftover nineties power-ballad; even though it isn’t a power-ballad, at least not until the final chorus. Beef it up a bit, though, and it’s ‘Always’ by Bon Jovi. And there are few worse insults than that, in my book.

For most of its runtime, ‘Hero’ is a Spanish-guitar tinged love song. Enrique delivers it in a tremulous, hiccupping manner he must have thought would make him sound overcome with emotion, but to me it sounds like he’s gagging over the words, like a cat hacking up a big hairball. Though to be fair, gagging is the reasonable response to this bilge.

The best bit is the understated Latin guitar solo, which is not a sound we hear very often on top of the charts. Note that it is also the bit where Enrique shuts up. The funny thing is, I quite like some of his songs. He tended to be pretty listenable, and fun, when he kept things upbeat. ‘Hero’ though, remains his signature song, for English-speakers at least.

I remember the video quite well too, and Enrique cavorting with Jennifer Love-Hewitt before being beaten to death by Mickey Rourke. He had a habit of casting beautiful women in his videos, with tennis player Anna Kournikova appearing in the follow-up ‘Escape’. To be fair, they’ve been in a relationship ever since, which will have ruined Enrique’s chances of equalling his father’s body count (over 3000, apparently). But, they do here become the first father and son to top the UK charts, Julio having made it twenty years earlier with ‘Begin the Beguine’.

The other reason why I can’t stand ‘Hero’, and which may be clouding my judgement of an undoubtedly popular song, is that it will forever remind me of the death of a school friend. He died suddenly, when we were nineteen, and this played as we left the funeral service. Thing is, there is no way he would have chosen this song for his funeral. He’d probably never once thought about what song he’d want played at his funeral. What nineteen-year-old would? It was clearly just a CD of mood-appropriate music owned by the crematorium. (The other song I remember playing was Aerosmith’s ‘Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’, another one I now cannot stand). I think that’s incredibly sad, having a song you don’t like played at your funeral. Better to have silence. Ever since, though I’ve not made an official list, I’ve dropped regular hints to those who listen that I’d like certain songs played at my funeral. I won’t say what they are here, not wanting to tempt fate, but rest assured if Enrique Iglesias’s ‘Hero’ is played, whoever is responsible will be getting haunted, mercilessly.