La Llorona

"La Llorona" is a traditional Mexican song with no known author, with an origin in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca linked to the Zapotec; Andrés Henestrosa is credited with collecting and popularizing its verses, which Wikipedia says he heard around 1941. Rodrigo Bazán of the UAEM argues it dates from the colonial era, citing 134 coplas in the Cancionero Folklórico de México, and says Cuco Sánchez recorded it in 1943. Vargas's recordings we can document are the 1961 RCA Victor album Chavela Vargas (track three), the Madrid session of April 1993 and the live performance at Carnegie Hall on September 15, 2003. Wikipedia says she recorded it in the 1950s without naming an album, which conflicts with the 1961 date; we cannot tell which version our upload is.

In a 1993 Canal+ España documentary she said the Llorona is one of the Mexica goddesses, the goddess of life and death. Almodóvar wrote that in her last concerts she gave the verses almost as a murmur and sang the final stanza rising to a shout. She sang it in Frida (2002), where Lila Downs also performs it and whom she called her successor. Covers include Raphael (mid-1960s), Joan Baez on Gracias a la Vida (1974), Lila Downs on La Sandunga (1999), Dulce Pontes (2006), Jesse Cook with Amanda Martinez (2007) and Natalia Lafourcade on Musas Vol. 2 (2018); Aida Cuevas, Lafourcade and Angela Aguilar sang it at the 2019 Grammys. Setlist.fm holds eight Vargas shows from 1994 to 2006, with song lists only for 2002 to 2006.