Me arrepiento means "I regret it," from the powerful and emotional verb arrepentirse (to regret). It's a key phrase for expressing a change of heart and is central to the song's story.
In this iconic anthem, Selena sings, "Si una vez dije que te amaba, hoy me arrepiento" (If I once said I loved you, today I regret it). This declaration is the song's emotional core, transforming a memory of love into a powerful statement of empowerment and leaving the past behind.
Have you ever looked back on a relationship and thought, "What was I thinking?!" Selena's classic Tejano hit "Si Una Vez" is all about that feeling. She sings about a love where she gave everything, putting herself "dispuesta a tus pies" [willingly at your feet], only to be treated badly in return. She's not sad about it anymore, though. She's mad, and she's completely done.
The chorus is so direct. Selena declares, "Si una vez dije que te amaba, hoy me arrepiento" [If I once said I loved you, today I regret it]. She even calls her past self "loca" [crazy] for ever saying she'd give her life for this person. The song's final word on the matter is simple: "Ese error es cosa de ayer" [That mistake is a thing of yesterday]. It's the perfect song for anyone moving on from a big mistake and refusing to look back.
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.