Stephen King reveals his obsession with ‘Mambo No. 5’
Horror author Stephen King has revealed his obsession with ‘Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)’ by Lou Bega. In fact, the writer once played the song so much that his wife threatened to leave him.
King recently shared his love for the track, which samples the original instrumental mambo by Dámasa Pérez Prado, during an interview with The Rolling Stone. In between discussion of anti-vaxxers and his new book, Holly, King was asked about the Latin-pop track.
The man behind The Shining confirmed that he is a massive fan of the song, emphasising “big time” before joking, “My wife threatened to divorce me”.
He continued to explain the story, recalling: “I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to fucking leave you.'”
King recalls that, at the time, he was writing 11/22/63, in which his protagonist time travels to try and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Aside from ‘Mambo No. 5’, King also shared his preference for electronic music when he’s writing: “When I write, there are things that I can listen to a lot. And a lot of it is techno stuff or disco stuff, but techno in particular”.
The author went on to name a number of artists he frequents, including LCD Soundsystem, Fat Boy Slim, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Gloria Gaynor. He explains: “I can just listen to that stuff. If you tried to write and listen to Leonard Cohen, how the fuck would you do that? Because you’d have to listen to the words and you’d have to listen to what he’s saying. But with some of the techno stuff… it’s all good.”
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