“Encuentros Cercanos” is Fito Páez’s playful invitation to look at love through a sci-fi telescope. It starts with a casual question about UFOs and quickly lifts off into a star-strewn adventure where romance, friendship and outer-space curiosity blur together. By name-checking Fabi (his longtime musical and sentimental partner Fabi Cantilo), Fito suggests that believing in flying saucers is no crazier than falling head-over-heels for “the most beautiful girl in the world.” From there, the couple rides an imaginary spacecraft from Uranus to Saturn, proving that affection can be as limitless as the cosmos. Along the journey the song sprinkles pop-culture jokes, cosmic imagery and a wink to the cult movie Mars Attacks!, all to remind us that our shared fantasies—cinema, music, love—bind us together in the vastness of space.
Beneath its humorous surface, the track hides a gentle manifesto: the universe might be huge and chaotic, yet we are never truly alone. Fito alternates between optimism (“don’t worry, man”) and earthly anxiety (“the house is on fire, there’s nothing to eat”), mirroring the everyday turbulence of relationships. Ultimately, he lands on a hopeful note: the right song—symbolized by the borrowed record “Indian Love Call”—can rescue us from any cosmic or personal meltdown. In other words, when reality feels alien, crank up the music, hold someone close and trust that love is the greatest close encounter of them all.