Singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler: ‘I don’t believe in shortcuts. I like to take all the little roads’

What is your earliest memory?
The smell of corn tortillas on a trip to Mexico when I was five. Every time I go back there, I order tortillas and it connects me to the past.

Who was or still is your mentor?
I’m the oldest son of two doctors. They worked a lot when we were really young, so we were left with our neighbour, Maria Elena Abella, a piano teacher — we called her Mememe. Her daughter was part of the guerrilla movement in Uruguay, and she was in jail. We needed a grandmother, she needed grandchildren, so she kind of adopted us. She said to my mother: “The boy is always around the piano — why don’t I try to teach him?” She was the one who awakened the notion that I might be good at music. When she died, she left me that piano.

How fit are you?
I’m 58. Let’s say I could be worse, at this age. I do the things that I love. I like surfing. I dance a lot — we go out dancing after every concert. I play fronton — it’s like squash, from the Basque country.

Tell me about an animal you have loved.
Many dogs. Jana, our current dog, is amazing.

Risk or caution, which has defined your life more?
Risk. I studied medicine and worked as a doctor in my parents’ clinic in Montevideo. I was doing really well economically. At 30 years old, I left all that to share a flat in Madrid with eight other Uruguayans and start from scratch with music.

When I won an Oscar in 2005 [for the song “Al Otro Lado del Río” from The Motorcycle Diaries], I had the chance to go the easy way; to move to the States and start a career with an award that would have opened a lot of doors. But I don’t believe in shortcuts. I like to take all the little roads and all the detours.

What trait do you find most irritating in others?
Apathy. Lack of empathy. Lack of love.

What trait do you find most irritating in yourself?
The will to please others. It has a good side, but sometimes I go too far.

What drives you on?
The Freudian concept of Eros, which has to do with passion, the impulse of life. And I am very, very curious. My father, a German Jew, escaped the Holocaust when he was five; my mother was a Christian, rooted in Uruguay for generations. They were very closed people, they grew up under dictatorship. I always wanted to know about other people.

Do you believe in an afterlife?
We change every molecule of our bodies every two years, and those molecules become part of other things. I don’t believe in heaven, but I do believe what we are made of carries on.

Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence?
I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t experience both. I tend to see life as an ephemeral gift and I try to enjoy it, knowing that suffering is not a thing you can avoid.

Name your favourite river.
Rio de la Plata, the river that the Uruguayan capital Montevideo is built on. I grew up on that river. Where I used to live, sometimes it’s green, sometimes it’s brown, and it looks like the sea.

What would you have done differently?
Nothing. I cherish every mistake. ­I learnt from every wrong step that I took, as much as I did from every right step.