Factor in the pandemic and this year’s February blahs have never been so acute. Which makes it a perfect time for Shakira, the irrepressible Colombian whose Latin-infused pop is overshadowed perhaps only by her signature shaking, shimmering, belly dancing.

Regular readers will realize that dance-pop would not qualify as to my go-to or even occasional genre, but I admit to having been rivetted with Shakira at first encounter: the Andean pan-flute infused “Whenever, Wherever,” which served as her English-language debut in 2001. After all, besides “El Condor Pasa” (the Simon & Garfunkel version), how often does pan flute (Zamfir excepted) pop up in popular music?

My favourite Shakira song, though, is the mariachi-flavoured “Ciega Sordomuda,” which happily makes me think of Mexico and, on a deeper level, ignites my ingrained worldly wanderlust.

Recorded in 1998 when she was merely a Latin, rather than global, superstar, the song is sung entirely in Spanish, and the title, for what it’s worth, means “deaf-mute blind,” which nevertheless inspired one web fan to state: “This (song) is the reason I want to learn Spanish.”

Another revealed, “I’m in a bad spot tonight… This song, that I don’t speak nor understand, brings me so much happiness in my dark place tonight!”

And for those of us similarly stuck in pandemic purgatory in 2021, I say, “amén” to that!