Before Selena Quintanilla was murdered on March 31, 1995, she was on the precipice of something big — the culmination of all her grinding and hustling in the Tejano music scene was about to send her into another stratosphere. The 23-year-old Grammy winner had already accomplished so much in her short life, becoming a beloved figure among those who wore Stetson hats and frequented rodeos.
But just when the promise of more was on the horizon, Selena’s light was snuffed out.
In the 30 years since her death, Latinos (and beyond) have elevated the late singer to sainthood. Hers is a tragic story of a life cut too soon to realize her fullest potential. And no song in her catalog encapsulates that more than “Dreaming of You.”
Released on Aug. 14, 1995, “Dreaming of You” was the posthumous lead single from the Corpus Christi-bred singer’s fifth and final studio album of the same name. It was the first Spanish-language album to debut at no. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 331,000 copies in its first week, and would go on to become the best-selling Latin music album for the next 20 years.
Selena’s memory has far outlasted the number of years she was alive — and her legacy has become her best-selling product. The Quintanilla family has continuously capitalized on Selena’s memory, making millions upon millions on her image, story and music. It doesn’t always sit well with fans. But back in 1995, the album was a welcome opportunity to honor Selena’s talent, grieve her loss and mourn what a long life could have given her and her fans. Given that her death happened in the midst of recording, songwriters, producers and her family had to finish the album without her, filling the void of not just an artist, but a loved one.
In E News’ oral history of the making of “Dreaming of You,” Selena’s husband Chris Perez recalls how difficult it was to continue work on the album so soon after her death.
“To be around the voice at that particular time was really painful,” he explained. “To the point to where I just would ask to not even have that vocal going on, you know, just pop it in here and there so I knew where I was in the song. It wasn’t fun.”
The album was to be Selena’s big anglophone crossover attempt, with “Dreaming of You” leading the charge. Originally written by Franne Golde and Tom Snow for Minneapolis pop R&B group The Jets, “Dreaming of You” is a sweet, longing ballad of a girl sitting in her room dreaming of the boy she loves. It reads and sounds like a starry-eyed teenager’s diary entry: Late at night when all the world is sleeping / I stay up and think of you / And I wish on a star / that somewhere you are / thinking of me too…
“Dreaming of You” was Selena’s highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 22 on the chart. The song had captured the very essence of Selena and her life to that point: a young girl who had fallen in love with a boy her parents didn’t approve of, but compelled by her passion, decided to run away and marry him despite their dismay. The song also reads like an allegory for a young Mexican American woman who is caught between two cultures, struggling with the confining nature of being enough for both sides of her identity.
Selena was a predominantly Spanish-language artist who modeled herself after divas like Donna Summer, Jody Watley and Paula Abdul, within a primarily Mexican genre. She wanted to be an American R&B-pop singer, but had been cordoned off from that path — a business decision made by her father when she was too young to fully possess her own voice. And it became the primary goal of her artistry to create a space that fit her fullest self, as she was and as she wanted to be.
This is most evident on “Dreaming of You.” On the sentimental banger, she taps into the same heart-wrenching, ranchera balladeering she performs on “Tú Solo Tú” and “No Me Queda Más” and transfers it to English-language pop. And to fully emphasize the crossover, she does an interlude in Spanish. It serves as a connective bridge between two periods of her career that would allow her fans to cross over with her.
Although it’s the ultimate story of what could have been, the truth is that Selena did accomplish the career she dreamed of. As she crossed over into the afterlife, she also crossed over into the American pop mainstream, just as she had hoped for in her time on Earth. And in sharing her music from generation to generation, fans continue to fulfill that dream.
