Artist	Song
Warren Zevon	Carmelita (1974 Demo)
Luis y Julian	Pescadores de Ensenada
Merle Haggard	Go Home
Flaco Jimenez featuring Dwight Yoakam	Carmelita
Vicente Fernßndez	El Rey
Marty Robbins	El Paso
Danny Santos	Carmelita
El Mariachi Mexico	Cielito Lindo
Elvis Presley	Spanish Eyes
Reflections	Carmelita
Mariachi Sol	El Jarabe Tapatio
Don Edwards	San Angelo
Comet Bluegrass All-Stars	Carmelita
Beck	Burro
Jackson Browne	Linda Paloma
Lynn Conover & Susan Weaver	Carmelita
Mariachi Arriba Juarez	El Zopilote Mojado
Jay and the Americans	Come a Little Bit Closer
The Willy DeVille Acoustic Trio	Carmelita
Trio Hermanos Michel	La Malague±a
Lyle Lovett	The Road to Ensenada
Warren Zevon	El Amor De Mi Vida

Comment:

I recently picked up the re-issue of Warren Zevon's self-titled album, a remarkable work known for revealing the dark underbelly of life in Los Angeles in the 1970s. One of the bonus tracks is a demo version of Carmelita, a song about a desperate heroin junkie in love with a Mexican girl. The demo is looser, lighter, and more playful in tone than the version which appears on the album, and includes a previously-unheard verse which underscores Zevon's knack for dark humor (which had me LMAO when I first heard it). Inspired by this new take on the classic track, I went searching for other artists' interpretations of the song and was pleasantly surprised to find a good number of covers for a mix (I decided to stay with the more folksy-country-latin versions). Taking a cue from the first line of the song (I hear Mariachi static on my radio), I decided to season the mix with Mariachi music. Then I rounded out the mix with songs of other bittersweet cross-border romances, which result in heartbreak at best (multiple homicide at worst). The mix concludes with El Amor De Mi Vida, a track from Zevon's final album, which could be interpreted as Zevon's fond farewell to Carmelita wherever she might be. The cover is a photo of the actual "Pioneer Chicken Stand" mentioned in the song.

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