Mátame literally translates to "Kill me". While this sounds dramatic, it's a passionate and poetic expression common in Spanish love songs.
In the lyrics, Selena sings "Mátame con tus ojos" (Kill me with your eyes). She is using this phrase metaphorically to describe being completely overwhelmed and captivated by her lover's gaze. It’s a powerful way to say "your look takes my breath away."
Get ready to feel the rush of first love! In Quiero, Mexican-American superstar Selena repeats the word quiero (“I want”) like a heartbeat, turning the song into an irresistible plea for affection. She begs her crush to say “I love you,” seal it with a kiss, and share a warmth so powerful that she “dies” without it. The upbeat cumbia-pop rhythm keeps things light and danceable, yet every line brims with sincerity.
Selena dreams big: life juntitos (together), eternal happiness, and a love felt “con el alma” (with the soul). The dramatic cry “Mátame con tus ojos” (“Kill me with your eyes”) shows how intense her desire is. At its core, the song celebrates the courage to voice what the heart longs for and the hope that love will be returned just as strongly.
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez 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.