Bésame Mucho no7 - Vienna School

And here we have the lady who started it all, Mexican concert pianist Consuelo "Chela" Velazquez, elaborating on the simple lovestruck teen ballad she had composed some three decades earlier.

Bésame Mucho no6 - Kenny G and Stevie W

Takes a while to get going, but worth the wait as it features Stevie Wonder on the harmonica.

Bésame Mucho no5 - Nihongo Flamenco

Mis respetos.

Bésame Mucho no4 - Bossa Nova

Now this is more like it...

Rosa Passos doesn't look much like the girl in this video, i.e. and when she passes each one she passes goes ah. More's the pity...

Bésame Mucho no3 - You're not doing it right

Back in the early 90s I used to think Thalía was cute, probably before I'd heard her sing.

I can't listen to this clip without thinking of Marilyn's "Happy Birthday Mr President". And as for the outfit, was she sending some sort of subliminal sartorial message to the producers of El Clon?

It's a wonder she still has a recording contract. Hold on, no it's not — she's married to Tommy Mottola, who traded down a bit in terms of vocal talent at least after his split from Mariah Carey.

With so many versions of this classic song out in the ether, there were bound to be a few turds, and I will surely spare you the majority of these, however Thalía's rendition — with it's excruciating pauses and overworked notes — has a certain negative bewitchery of distinction.

Bésame Mucho no2 - You're doing it right

This is the version through which Consuelo Velásquez's song achieved worldwide fame — recorded by the Chilean bolero-singer Lucho Gatica in 1953, 22 years after it was originally composed.

Bésame Mucho no1 - Live in the Parque Central

This famous little ditty was composed by a 15-year-old Mexican girl in 1931 when, so she said, she herself had yet to experience the pleasure of her first kiss.

Here's it is performed very capably by Maestro Hugo Cruz, the star musician of Cuban-emigre band Orquestra Casa Blanca in Antigua's Parque Central last Monday...Santiago day. Having positioned myself at the rear on the Cathedral steps, I had to run round to the front to capture the rest of Cruz's solo with its gypsy-inflected encore.