"Como la Flor" ("Like the Flower") is a song by American singer Selena, taken from her third studio album, Entre a Mi Mundo (1992). The song was released as the second single from Entre a Mi Mundo in June 1992, by EMI Latin. It was written by Selena's brother and music producer, A.B. Quintanilla and backup vocalist of Selena y Los Dinos, Pete Astudillo. A.B. conceptualized the song in 1982, admiring a family selling illuminated plastic flowers at their concert in Sacramento, California. It would take A.B. ten years to write the song, finding it challenging to write about a plastic flower that he felt was lyrically unappealing. In 1992, A.B. began having an infectious melody stuck in his head, he ran out of the shower of their hotel room in Bryan, Texas, pulled out a keyboard, and immediately began working on it with Astudillo. It took A.B. 20 minutes to complete the music while it took Astudillo another hour to put the lyrics together. Lyrically, the protagonist addresses her former love interest who abandoned her for another partner. Agonizing, she confesses that she is unsure of her ability to ever love again, wishing her former partner and his new love interest the best. Musically, "Como la Flor" is an uptempo and danceable Tejano cumbia torch song that fuses between tropical and cumbia rhythms with reggae and pop music.
Released: June 1992
Recorded: AMEN Studios
Genre: Tejano cumbia
Length: 3:02
Label: EMI Latin
Songwriter(s): A.B. Quintanilla Pete Astudillo
Producer(s): A.B. Quintanilla
"Como la Flor" received widespread acclaim from music critics, who praised Selena's emotional delivery in conveying the song's lyrics of heartbreak and loss. It peaked at number six on the US Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart while it became one of the most-played songs throughout Latin music radio stations in the state of Texas. Jose Behar, president of EMI Latin, booked Selena for a press tour in Monterrey, Mexico. Following Selena's visit, "Como la Flor" peaked at number three on Mexico's Grupera Songs chart, her first commercially successful single in the country. At the 1993 Premio Lo Nuestro, "Como la Flor" won Regional Mexican Song of the Year. It was nominated for Single of the Year at the 1993 Tejano Music Awards, though was removed in preliminaries a move that was criticized by music critic Rene Cabrera.
Since its introduction as part of Selena's set list and as its popularity grew, she either opened or closed her concerts with "Como la Flor". During her live renditions, "Como la Flor" was often played in a downtempo form while Selena performed a flamenco-inspired floreo hand gesture. She mournfully sings the title in a cadenza that is seductive and emotional with a dramatic pause similar to the flin styles of bolero singers Chavela Vargas and La Lupe. She follows this with her enunciations of agony and the beating of her chest singing "como me duele" ("how it hurts me") before the song transitions into an upbeat tempo. Her live performances have received critical acclaim from music critics and scholars who found Selena's performance as an encapsulation of Latino mournfulness while praising the singer's stage presence, choreography, and emotional tones. "Como la Flor" was the closing number for Selena's final live performance in Bryan, Texas on March 19, 1995, as she was shot and killed on March 31. "Como la Flor" has been regarded as Selena's signature song, her "trademark", and has become a posthumous epithet and swan song. Selena's dominance on the Latin music charts in the 1990s is credited to "Como la Flor" which has become one of her "most celebrated songs" and has since become part of the Texas musical cannon.
"Como la Flor" has been named one of the best Latin pop songs by Rolling Stone magazine. It has since been covered by various artists including recordings by Jackie Cruz, Angela Aguilar, Francisca Valenzuela, and Cristian Castro. Selena's performances of "Como la Flor" has been dramatized by Jennifer Lopez in the 1997 biopic film by Warner Bros. and in 2020 by Christian Serratos in Selena: The Series on Netflix. It is the name of a biography written by The New York Times writer Joe Nick Patoski. Contemporary reviews remain positive, with essayist Ilan Stavans suggesting the emergence of Latin pop in the United States in the 1990s is attributed to the popularity of "Como la Flor". While scholar Deborah Parédez attributed its success to Selena's usage of the underexplored genres of African American music into Tejano music. "Como la Flor" has been certified 9× Platinum (Latin) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which denotes 540,000 units consisting of sales and on-demand streaming. "Como la Flor" currently holds the Guinness World Record for most video uploads of people lip syncing to a single song in one hour.
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