A few weeks ago, Yordano was visiting his first adopted country, Venezuela, to offer a series of concerts and to add a new title to the long list of awards for his extensive and fruitful career.
“I live in New York, but I came to Caracas because the University of Los Andes is going to give me an award,” said the singer-songwriter, who also returns with the album “Ida y vuelta,” the nineteenth of his career and which includes five original songs and five covers of performers he considers his heroes, including the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Robert Johnson.
The Universidad de Los Andes awarded an honorary doctorate in art to Yordano di Marzo, his given name, for his “social sensitivity, the literary quality of his songs and the high level of achievement developed in each of his albums,” according to a statement from the university. The ceremony took place at its headquarters in Mérida in June.
In addition, Yordano was recognized in his native Italy with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Now, after a break that kept him off the stage for several years—the pandemic and a cancer he has already overcome—Yordano returns with the promotion of the single, “El último tren,” a tribute to Tom Waits, whose original version is called “Downtown Train” and was released in 1985. It will be part of his next album, soon to be released.
“It’s a project from several years ago,” said the artist. “Tom Waits is a very particular character. […]; the song has been covered in English, but I wanted to do it in Spanish, I wanted it to sound as it should, and I came up with ‘El último tren’, which could be the last one that comes out that night somewhere.”
Many people on social media, however, were concerned about Yordano when they read the title he used for this topic. They asked him about his health, if the cancer had returned or if it was a way of saying goodbye.
“But people don’t go beyond that and don’t analyze what it’s about,” he explained. “The lyrics are similar, respectful of the final text; there is no ‘downtown train’ but there are girls from Brooklyn and crows.”
On his list of accolades, Yordano can also boast the Musical Excellence Award given to him by the Latin Recording Academy, which awards the Latin Grammy, in 2022.
All these awards seem to be the harvest of so many years of sowing in the artist’s career. But that does not mean that he is sitting on his laurels. For him, it is just an inherent part of his splendid career.
“Yes, I feel very honored,” he said. “But I want to continue sowing despite such a large harvest.”