“Clandestino” by Manu Chao

"Clandestino" gave Manu Chao's 1998 debut album its title and, as the record's second single, its conscience. Sung in Spanish and written by Chao alone, it's a song about immigration: by his own account he wrote it about the line dividing Europe from the people arriving from poorer nations, and he reckoned a good share of the people on the street around him were clandestinos, living without papers.

It went out on Virgin and barely dented the French chart, but it refused to go away, turning up on that chart again in November 2013. A video was shot for it, along with one for "Mama Call", the album track that rode along on the single.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.