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Before “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” there was “Itty Bitty Bubbles”.
This rare video surfaced of Selena Quintanilla singing to the beat of “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, ” but in English and no, the lyrics are not the same. In fact, the song’s subject matter is completely different.
In the clip, we hear the late star sing, “If I had just one wish, I would like to be a fish.” Wait, what?
According to Pete Astudillo, the song was born out of Selena testing out words.
The former band member of Los Dinos explained on Univision’s El Gordo y La Flaca that Selena, her husband Chris Perez and her brother A.B. Quintanilla were all improvising with vocals and Selena came up with a catchy sound and the words “itty bitty bubbles.”
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The melody stuck, and the band continued to play it at rehearsals and soundchecks. Then Selena performed it in 1993, as we see in the video, and improvised the phrase about the fish and added, “I’d swim, swim, swim under the sea, I’d be so free.”
A.B. felt that the rhythm had tons of potential but wanted to give it new lyrics and have it be a Spanish-language song that aligned to Selena’s cumbia sound. And just like that, the song went from being about fish and bubbles to the sound of a heart beating when it’s in love.
Yesterday, it was announced that on Nov. 3 Selena will receive a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame over 22 years after her death.