Perdición is a powerful Spanish word that translates to "perdition," "ruin," or "damnation." It's a dramatic term you won't find in just any song, suggesting a total loss of one's way.
In this classic mariachi ballad, Selena sings about being so heartbroken that she throws herself into self-destructive habits: "me tiro a la borrachera y a la perdición" (I throw myself into drunkenness and perdition). This word perfectly captures the depth of her despair and the feeling of being utterly lost to a consuming love.
Selena goes straight for the drama in this classic track, giving us a character who has completely fallen apart over an ex. Right away in the opening line, she confesses to being "borracha y apasionada" ("drunk and passionate") and admits she has completely surrendered to "la borrachera y a la perdición" ("drinking and ruin"). It is blunt, melodramatic, and totally over the top in the best way possible. Instead of moving on with dignity, she blames this one specific person for every single sip and every bad decision.
The chorus drives the point home with zero restraint: "Tú, sólo tú / Has llenado de luto mi vida" ("You, only you / Have filled my life with mourning"). She even calls the memory of her ex a "sombra fatal, sombra del mal" ("fatal shadow, shadow of evil") that follows her around with pure stubbornness. To fight off that ghostly reminder, she heads straight back to the bottle. It is a fiery, theatrical look at how messy unrequited love can make someone act, turning heartbreak into full-blown cantina poetry.
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.