Somos Novios (It's Impossible)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Somos Novios (Spanish for “We're a Couple”) is a song first recorded in 1968 by Mexican songwriter Armando Manzanero. It was the title track of his album Somos Novios, released that year, and he also sang it in the 1969 Mexican film of the same name.

In 1970, English lyrics were written by Sid Wayne to the same melody, and Perry Como released the song as “It’s Impossible.” Como’s version became a big hit in the United States and Britain, reaching No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending four weeks at No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart in early 1971; it peaked at No. 4 in the U.K. The track was nominated for Song of the Year at the 1971 Grammy Awards. Manzanero’s original recording was later inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001 for its enduring influence.

In 2006, Andrea Bocelli recorded a new version of the song as a duet with Christina Aguilera for his album Amore. They performed it at the Sanremo Music Festival, and critics called the performance enchanting, with Aguilera’s vocals described as torchy. The Bocelli–Aguilera version reached No. 39 on the Italian charts. The song has since been covered by various artists and appears in several international editions, including a version with Japanese singer Rimi Natsukawa and other duets with Petra Berger and Katharine McPhee.