Palpitar means 'to palpitate' or 'to throb,' specifically describing a rapid, strong heartbeat. It's the perfect word to unlock the meaning of this classic song.
Selena sings "mi corazĂłn... me empieza a palpitar" (my heart... starts to palpitate) when she sees her crush. This is the feeling that creates the iconic 'Bidi Bidi Bom Bom' sound, which imitates the sound of her heart beating wildly with excitement!
Have you ever had a crush so intense that your body completely betrays you? That is exactly what Selena is dealing with here. The moment her crush walks by (Cada vez que lo veo pasar [Every time I see him walk by]), her logical brain switches off entirely. She literally sings that her heart gets excited and stops reasoning (se emociona, ya no razona [it gets excited, it no longer reasons]). It is ridiculous, sweet, and totally out of her hands.
The physical reactions she describes are hilariously dramatic. Just hearing this person talk makes her knees shake (Me tiemblan hasta las piernas [Even my legs shake]), and her chest starts pounding out of control. The title phrase, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, is her playful way of mimicking a racing heartbeat (Y me empieza a cantar / Me canta asĂ [And it starts to sing to me / It sings to me like this]). It turns an overwhelming, nervous feeling into pure, bubbly rhythm.
Selena Quintanilla-PĂ©rez grew up in Lake Jackson, Texas, fronting her family's band, Selena y Los Dinos, with her brother A.B. writing the songs and playing bass and her sister Suzette on drums. She was raised speaking English, and her father drilled the Spanish lyrics into her phonetically, line by line, years before she was fluent in the language she sold millions of records in.
Tejano was a men's business when she took it over: she won the Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist of the Year nine years running from 1987, and Selena Live! took the 1994 Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album. "Como la Flor", from 1992's Entre a Mi Mundo, is the song attached to her name more than any other, and Amor Prohibido (1994) put four singles at number one on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart, among them "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" and "No Me Queda Más". She was shot and killed in Corpus Christi on March 31, 1995, aged 23, by the former president of her fan club. Dreaming of You, the English-language crossover album she had been recording, was released that August and entered the Billboard 200 at number one.