Jeanette made her solo debut in 1971 with the release of the Manuel Alejandro-penned single "Soy rebelde" on label Hispavox, which marked her return to music and established her as a melodic singer, veering away from the folk-pop of Pic-Nic, her previous group of the 1960s.
[8][9] That day, he also wrote the song "Escucha"; both tracks were composed with Jeanette's singular voice in mind, with Perales imitating her high-pitched vocals in the demo recording.
[13] According to Perales, Jeanette initially refused to record the song, as she wanted to keep working with well-known composers like Manuel Alejandro, and eventually gave in after her surroundings pushed her to do it.
[18] Critic Julián Molero of Lafonoteca described the track's instrumentation as "full of self-confidence with almost mocking interventions of the brasses and the crash of the drums releasing unexpected blows".
[19] Writing for the Spanish edition of Rolling Stone, Miguel Ángel Bargueño wrote that the song possessed "an unruly rhythm and distinctly pop sound".
[20] In the book Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, authors Kim Cooper and David Smay described the song as: "delicate breezy pop with one of those super-suave catchy tunes".
[21] The organizers of Festival Europa Sur stated in 2014 that with tracks like "Porque te vas", Jeanette "demonstrated that a canción melódica song can be approached from a pop optic".
Since its inclusion in Cría cuervos, "Porque te vas" has attained cult status,[39] and is now considered a classic,[40][41] remaining one of the most famous songs of Spanish pop music.
"[43] Efe Eme's Luis Lapuente described the single in 2016 as "a precious cult object among European collectors, who compare the former lead singer of Pic-Nic with delicious French lolitas such as Lio or Françoise Hardy".
[44][45][46] "Porque te vas" is often analyzed in relation to the final years of Francisco Franco's regime, time in which "Spanish society began to submerge in the cultural wave that dominated Europe.
[21] Likewise, in his book Yé-Yé Girls of '60s French Pop, Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe felt that Jeanette was "a real ray of sunshine in a country under the strict military regime of the dictator Franco.
"[48] Writing for the South Korean online newspaper Voice of the People, Gwon Jongsul argued that the song's inclusion in Cría cuervos gave it a new, political meaning—becoming associated with the dictatorship and bringing a "more intense pain" to the lyrics.
[49] In the song's entry, Miguel Ángel Bargueño felt that "Porque te vas" "broke the image of folk balladist that Jeanette carried since her Pic-Nic stage and conveyed an accentuated feeling of loss that caused a greater impact by being interpreted by a helpless-looking twenty-year-old.
[50] Writing for The Guardian, Andrew Khan described the song as "a masterpiece of downbeat easy listening," and praised it for "[proving] once again there's often more depth of emotion in derided MOR pop than other, more fashionable, genres.