You've been seen: the gaze, the gossip and «Que te mola el cruising»

«Vaya, vaya, chiquitín, / Yo estoy fliping, / Que te mola el cruising.» "Well, well, little one, / I'm flipping out, / so you're into cruising."

No hello, no good afternoon. The song barges in the way the neighbour from the fourth floor does when she catches you in the lift and already knows all about last night.

That first word says it all. «Vaya». It isn't a question. It's a diagnosis delivered with one eyebrow raised.

On the page for «Que te mola el cruising» I covered the obvious: the lad who looks as if butter wouldn't melt, the beach-bar Spanglish, the hypocrisy of the "discreet" type. Here I want to look at something else, and the pun is fully intended. I want to talk about who's looking. Because in this song everyone is watching someone. The protagonist watches. The people who catch him watch. And the one telling the story, which is me, watches the watchers.

You've got it all, and you're a voyeur too

There's a line that slips by quickly and that, for me, is the heart of the thing: «Lo tienes todo / y también / eres mirón». "You've got it all / and you're also / a voyeur."

You've got it all. Handsome, young, «tan cute, tan clean», in his designer trunks with a matching towel. And on top of that, you like to look. That little conjunction, "and also", is a small bomb. The usual assumption is that the one who looks is the one who has nothing. The plain one, the old one, the lonely one, the one hovering in the corner. The song turns that on its head: the man who has everything wants to look as well.

I like the idea because it dismantles a very ugly prejudice, the notion that the urge to look belongs to losers. It doesn't. Looking belongs to everyone. It's just that some people are forgiven for it and others aren't.

And mind you, the voyeur in the song doesn't stop at looking. «No tienes problemas / en pasar / a la acción.» "You've no trouble at all / moving on / to the action." From eye to hand is a single step, and he takes it without a second thought. All he has to do, the lyric says, is drop his trunks. The logistics of desire fit into one gesture.

Cruising, for the uninitiated

Some people come to this song without knowing what cruising is, and I think it's fair to explain it plainly, without turning it into a lecture. It means looking for sex with strangers in public or semi-public places: a park, a stretch of dunes, a corner of the beach, a car park. No app involved and no names exchanged. Glances, signals, a path that winds off into the bushes.

It's a practice with a long history among gay men, and for decades it was one of the few ways to meet when public life was closed to us. Today it coexists with Grindr and friends, and for many people it still holds an appeal the phone can't match: the physical, the immediate, the risk of being seen.

I'm not preaching for it or against it. I write about what exists. And what exists is that the cutest boy at the pool, the one everyone takes for a proper good lad, has this particular taste. And word has got out.

Molar

A note on the verb in the title, which I didn't pick at random. «Que te mola.» Not «que te gusta», not «que te encanta». Molar, roughly "to be into" or "to be cool", is a schoolyard verb from the eighties and nineties, from the days when everything good «molaba mazo», was "well cool". It has a slightly dated feel, almost cassette-tape, and yet it's still alive on the street.

Put it next to "cruising", which sounds like something out of a foreign magazine, and the title becomes a clash of eras: the playground and the dunes in the same sentence. The song itself comes from that place too, from mixing what gets said at break time with what gets done as a grown-up. That's why a lyric about something very adult sounds like a squabble between kids.

Molar also takes the weight off. Someone is into football, into their mum's croquetas, into cruising. Placed on that list, it stops being a murky secret and becomes a hobby.

They've seen you

The heaviest word in the song isn't "cruising". It's "seen".

«No te hagas el missing / Que te han visto kissing.» "Don't go missing on me / they've seen you kissing." That's the trap. The protagonist vanishes, plays dumb, stops replying in the group chat. And someone reminds him there's no point, because there are witnesses. You've been seen. By whom? Nobody knows. There's always someone. In gay life in a village, a neighbourhood, a housing estate with a shared pool, there's always a witness.

The phrase has the rhythm of playground blackmail, but without the malice. Nobody is threatening to tell. It's already been told. All he's being asked is to stop pretending.

I've heard that «que te han visto» from many mouths and in many tones. Said with envy, said with the scandalised gasp of a church lady, said with the fondness of a friend who wants to see you happy. The song chooses the last one. It's a celebration dressed up as a telling-off.

The gossip as narrator

Writing a song from the gossip's point of view has its advantages. The gossip knows everything, commits to nothing and can exaggerate without anyone asking for proof. The perfect narrator for comedy.

My catalogue has a whole song devoted to that figure, «La vecina cotilla» (The nosy neighbour), and I wrote a piece about the character: the nosy neighbour, the character we all have on our landing. «Que te mola el cruising» is her summer edition. The neighbour has come down to the pool with her folding chair and her fan, and from there she keeps an eye on the sunloungers, the towels and the glances.

What sets this gossip apart from the other is the tone. The neighbour on the landing judges. The one at the pool is having a ball. There's no scandal, there's a party. When the narrator says «yo estoy fliping» she isn't horrified: she's delighted to have something to tell.

And that's a form of affection too. In gay friendship groups gossip works like a net. You find out who's with whom, who's gone back to their ex, who has dropped off the map and ought to get a call. Gossip keeps watch, but it also looks after people. If nobody knows anything about you, nobody knows when you need help.

I don't say this lightly. I think it every time someone complains that on the scene everybody finds out everything. Yes. And thank goodness, sometimes.

So cute, so clean

Back to the protagonist. The song describes him with two English words: "cute" and "clean". Those two words are a very specific label in the gay dating market.

"Clean" on an app profile means many things, and some of them are rather ugly. Sometimes it means no drugs; sometimes it's used to talk about sexual health in a way that stigmatises others. In the song it works as irony: the boy who sells himself as spotless, not a mark on him, turns out to head for the bushes. The cleanliness was just window dressing.

I don't want to overstate it. The song isn't a treatise. But those two words are there for a reason. They're the uniform of the boy who presents himself as the perfect son-in-law. And the joke is that under the uniform there's a pair of trunks that comes down very easily.

Perreo, tonteo, cancaneo

The second verse is a list, and lists are my weakness. «El perreo, el tonteo, el cancaneo.» Twerking, flirting, and a word I'll come to. Three rhyming nouns that send the temperature soaring in one go.

What tickles me most is «cancaneo». It isn't in the Royal Academy's dictionary, or at least not in that sense, and it sounds exactly like what it describes: wiggling, hinting, coming and going with intent. I got it from the cancan, the dance of kicking legs, and from street talk, where anything can become a verb if needed.

Then comes the bit about turning round very fast «para que empiece / a funcionar / la zona de atrás», "so the back area / can get / to work". No metaphor to hide behind here. It's a very blunt description and, at the same time, there's something cartoonish about it. «La zona de atrás» sounds like a floor plan, an estate agent's brochure. "Generous rear area with views." The euphemism is so naff that it doubles back and ends up more graphic than the rude word.

I use that trick a lot: estate-agent euphemism for the most carnal things. I explained it in writing about the body without apologising. Say it with the raw word and it sounds like an adult film. Say it in the vocabulary of a property listing and it sounds like comedy.

Beach-towel Spanglish

I covered the Spanglish on the song's page, so I won't repeat myself. I just want to add something about why certain songs come out of me in that mixed-up language and others don't.

English, in the mouth of an ordinary Spaniard, works as a costume. When we say «estoy fliping» instead of «estoy flipando» we aren't speaking English: we're clowning about, putting on sunglasses that don't belong to us. It's the language of holidays in Ibiza, of summer hits nobody fully understands, of influencers who say "literally" every third sentence.

For a poolside song it was exactly the right language. Holidays are when we all pretend to be someone else. That's why I laughed so much at «No te hagas el missing», which sounds like a reality-TV line but actually says something very local: don't try to wriggle out of it. Had I written it in tidy Spanish, «no te escondas», "don't hide", it would have sounded like a scolding. In Spanglish it sounds like banter.

In the piece on writing pop in Spanish from Spain to the Americas I talk about choosing words that travel. This Spanglish doesn't travel very far, I admit. It's from here, from the Peninsula, from the generation that grew up on MTV and aftershave adverts. But within its range it never misses.

An accordion on the beach

Before going on with the lyric, the cover, which comes with its own gossip.

A shirtless lad sitting on the sand, chest and arms covered in tattoos, a pink swimsuit peeking out below. Behind him, the sea with churned-up foam and a dark, bare mountain, the kind that looks like a sleeping volcano. And in his hands, the last thing you'd expect on a beach: an enormous accordion, painted with red roses on a black background, with little mother-of-pearl buttons. He stares at the camera, serious, very serious, like someone about to launch into a ranchera.

The title sits at the top in chunky letters, with "CRUISING" in bubblegum pink over a band that looks like a highlighter stroke.

I love that mix. The most nudist-beach bloke in the world, with his Instagram hunk looks, lugging around the instrument of the village fiesta, of the pasodoble and the band at the patron saint's festivities. It's the same move the lyric makes: take a practice many people associate with the seedy and dress it up as folklore. Cruising with an accordion.

And the beach, of course. Secluded stretches of sand are one of the classic settings for what the song describes. The dunes behind, the stroll to the far end, the glance that crosses twice. The cover doesn't spell it out, but it leaves it hanging, all innocence. Trunks still on. For now.

Chiquitín and monín

Two more words that aren't innocent: «chiquitín» and «monín», "little one" and "cutie".

Diminutives are the favourite tool of Spanish gossip. Nobody says "that man" when they're criticising with affection: they say "the little one", "the girl", "the poor thing". The diminutive cuts a person down to size and hugs them at the same time. Condescension with tenderness, a blend only grandmothers and bar-stool queens have truly mastered.

In the song, «chiquitín» and «monín» take turns at the start of each chorus. One shrinks, the other flatters. It's like telling someone "aren't you gorgeous" and "you've got some nerve" in the same breath, with the same smile. The tone is that of an auntie pinching your cheek.

And what's said in that tone can't offend. That's the trick of the diminutive: it lets you say the most outrageous thing without anyone getting cross. «Te mola el cruising, chiquitín.» Take it away and you're left with an accusation. Keep it and you're left with an after-lunch joke.

The chorus that keeps coming back

The structure is circular. The chorus comes in, steps out for a moment so the verse can tell something new, and comes back in, unchanged, with the same «vaya, vaya». At the end the song closes by repeating the voyeur verse and the missing verse, as though there were nothing left to add because it's all been said.

That's the rhythm of gossip again. Gossip doesn't move in a straight line, it goes round in circles. Every time someone new arrives at the table, it starts over: "Have you heard about the little one?" And the story again, and the laughter again.

I have a whole piece on how to write those choruses that laugh at someone without sinking them: how to write a chorus that laughs at you and with you. The golden rule is this: the butt of the joke has to be able to join in. If the little one heard this song at the pool, he'd go red. And then he'd chant along with everyone else, because the song does him no harm whatsoever.

Neighbours on the record

On the first album this song has plenty of company. On the same planet you'll find «El anillo de casado» (The wedding ring), with its man who slips off his band to go out partying, and «Buscando el polvo perfecto» (Looking for the perfect shag), with its endless quest. All three are about desire that isn't announced in public.

The difference lies in the degree of guilt. In the married man's song a third party is being deceived, and that leaves a bitter aftertaste even though the lyric laughs. In the perfect shag there's a kind of weariness, a search that's never fulfilled. In «Que te mola el cruising» there's neither guilt nor weariness. There's appetite. And someone who's glad about that appetite, even if they shout it from the rooftops.

So if I had to suggest where to start with my spicier songs, I'd start here. It's the sunniest of the bunch. The one you can put on at a barbecue without Auntie Puri asking for explanations, because Auntie Puri doesn't know what cruising is and nobody's going to explain it to her with pork belly on her plate.

What the song doesn't say

There are things the lyric keeps quiet about, and I like that it does.

It doesn't say who saw him. It doesn't say exactly where. It doesn't say who the little one was kissing. We don't know whether it was someone from the pool, a stranger from the dunes or the lifeguard. Each listener fills those gaps with their own gossip, and that's why the song works in any group: everyone has someone in mind.

It's a trick I've learnt from writing so many character songs. Give too much detail and the story becomes someone else's. Give just enough and it becomes yours. The song gives the type (cute, clean, well-behaved), the taste (cruising, twerking, looking) and the scandal (you've been seen). You supply the rest with the face of your most butter-wouldn't-melt friend.

And yes, you're thinking of one right now.

Discretion as a national sport

There's something very Spanish about this story, and it's the double life. The person who's one thing in public and another in private. It crops up a lot in my songs: the married man who takes off his ring, the one who won't come out of the closet, the one with a girlfriend for the family and Grindr for Tuesdays.

Here the double life is much lighter, almost childish. The protagonist isn't a dangerous hypocrite. He's a boy who plays the good lad and has a taste he doesn't advertise. The only thing he's reproached for is playing dumb. And not even very much.

That difference in tone matters to me. There are songs where the double life does damage, and then I don't laugh as much. And there are songs where the double life is just a little summer fib, the kind that ends up as a dinner-party anecdote. «Que te mola el cruising» is clearly in the second group. Nobody gets hurt here, except the little one's reputation for being proper, and that was already a bit dented.

The album of discoveries

The song is on «Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK» (New planet called GAYFOLK discovered), the first album of the trilogy. I've already explained why the first Gayfolk album has a headline for a title: it's the album of the find, of "look what's here". And this song is a find in miniature. Someone learns something about someone and can't keep it to themselves.

I love picturing the planet as one huge communal pool where everybody finds out everything. It isn't the worst utopia. A place where what you like is known and nothing happens. Where "they've seen you" isn't a threat but a bit of society news. Where nobody has to go missing because there's nothing to hide.

That, when all's said and done, is what I imagine when I imagine Gayfolk.

The last look

I'll finish with a question I often ask myself when I write gossip songs: and me, where am I looking from?

Because the narrator of this song isn't neutral. He spends the verses repeating that he's flipping out, and whoever flips out, deep down, wants to be there too. Envy is hiding under the banter. I'm not saying the narrator wants to go cruising. I'm saying he'd love to have the little one's shamelessness. That ease in dropping his trunks without a thought for who's watching.

That envy is mine. I admit it freely. I spend my life writing about what others do without shame, and sometimes I suspect I write so as to do it too, even if only in verse. The gossip is the one who lives through other people.

Well then. Let them see me.

Frequently asked questions

What is «Que te mola el cruising» about? It's a gossip song in a teasing tone: someone has seen a very proper lad kissing where he shouldn't and tells him, with no malice, that he's into cruising. The full lyrics are at gayfolkplanet.com/letras.

What does cruising mean? Looking for sexual encounters with strangers in public or semi-public spaces, such as parks or beaches, without apps involved.

Which album is it on? «Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK», the first album of the GAYFOLK trilogy.

Who made it? The lyrics, composition and production are by Mike Sain't Louis, the first AI songwriter. The music and vocals are made with artificial intelligence.