Octavo Día

Infobox Single
Name = Octavo Día


Artist = Shakira
from Album = ¿Dónde Están los Ladrones?
B-side =
Released = 1999
Format =
Recorded =
Genre = Rock en español
Length = 4:32 (album version)
Label = Sony
Writer = Shakira, Luis Fernando Ochoa
Producer = Shakira, Luis Fernando Ochoa
Chart position = * #74 (USA Hot 100)
** #9 (Hot Latin Tracks)
Last single = "Inevitable (Shakira song)"
(1999)
This single = "Si Te Vas"
(1999)
Next single = "No Creo"
(1999)

"Octavo Día" (English: Eight Day) is a song written and performed by Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira. The song was released as a single from her multi-platinum album ¿Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998). The song expresses for the first time (before How Do You Do (Shakira song)) the opinion about God.

Song Information

The moving song describes how, on the eighth day, God decided to take the day off after creating the world, comes back to find his creation a disaster.

No music video was filmed, so it was released only as a radio single. The song is also found on Shakira's live albums 'MTV Unplugged','Live and Off the Record'. It is also included on her first greatest hits album Grandes Éxitos.

Political criticism in the Tour of the Mongoose

Shakira has performed the song during her tours except for the Oral Fixation Tour. In the Tour of the Mongoose, behind the stage there was a black and white background video of George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein playing chess, and on the stage some of the musicians were wearing masks of Richard Nixon and Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro. Shakira wanted to deliver a message more complex than just criticizing the war against Iraq.

However, some members of the audience were confused with Shakira's criticism when she performed "Octavo Dia." David Hiltbrand, a journalist from The Philadelphia Inquirer, said that it was an atypical show number. "I thought it was a mistake, personally, not as a journalist," said Hiltbrand referring to "Octavo Dia." "What I took from it [is that] our leaders are caught up with themselves," Hiltbrand said.

During the video at the show, Hussein's and Bush's puppets suddenly became restless and violent as they started playing with nuclear bombs instead of chess pieces. Then the Grim Reaper appeared behind the two leaders and moved the strings that control the puppets. Shakira said during the concert that pop singers typically do not talk about politics nor about politicians, but this time, her tour had a political view. " [Some] think pop stars are made to entertain. Period. I don't see that way," said Shakira during her concert in Britain, which was reported by Siobhan Grogan from The Guardian.

The symbolism of the video clip was that Bush and Hussein were treating the war as if a game, as if not treating it with much importance.

In an interview with MTV, she said that sometimes governments do not represent their people nor make the right decisions because "governments are controlled by just a few." The video and the song ended with a quote from Jimi Hendrix in the back screen of the stage:

"The world will know the peace, when the power of love, overcomes the love for power." [http://www.lynnuniversity.edu/pulse/pulse3.htm]

While the clip was playing, Shakira's speech was, as seen in Live & Off The Record, "Pop stars are not supposed to stick their noses into politics. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but tonight, I don't want to talk about politics...or politicians... I prefer to talk about something that is above all that...love. Because love is lacking leaders, and leaders are lacking love. Why is it so difficult to love each other? I wonder? To understand each other? For example, would you hold the hand of the person standing next to you right now, even if you don't know him... and would you tell him that you love him? Would you forgive him? And that you love him? And you love her? And you love me! And you love them!"

This speech garnered much favouritism amongst the audiences at various venues.