"La Isla Bonita" starts with a musical introduction performed on Bongos, before descending into synthesized beats from castanets. Madonna sings the chorus in the same G3 to C5 range. After the second chorus there is a Spanish guitar interlude whence Madonna's voice expands to F minor as she sings "I want to be where the sun warms the sky" and then comes down to the C minor when she sings "loves a girl". There is another musical interlude with a harmonica and the song, after another chorus, ends with fading out and Madonna's voice uttering the words "Él dijo que te ama (He said he loves you)". Paulinho da Costa played percussion on the track with Jonathan Moffett on drums and it was engineered and mixed by Michael Verdick.