In this episode we learn about Spanish singer-songwriter Antonio Flores, who achieved commercial success in the mid 90’s with his album Cosas mías (‘Stuff of mine’). Sadly, this masterful work would also be his last: shortly after the album release, Flores went into deep depression, following the death of his mother, the legendary singer, dancer and actress Lola Flores. Only two weeks after she passed, he was found dead from a drug overdose.

The song we explore is track number 9 from Cosas mías, called Mi habitación. It is a pop rock number with a Nashville-like country sensibility and the sort of intimate, confessional lyrics that characterised that whole album.

Mi habitación has very simple grammar. The song is for the most part an enumeration of nouns, preceded by either un or una or the possessive pronoun mi – as in the title itself. We will see that many of the nouns rhyme with habitación – like colchón, ilusión, prisión….

Being aware of the singer’s struggles with addiction, we will find various layers of meaning emerging in the words. The privacy of his room, which he describes in the song, would have been not only a space for intimacy, contemplation and creativity, but also the backdrop against which his deadly battle against substance abuse took place – and so words like mi lucha, mi perdición, mi vida o mi muerte take on new resonances and add new textures to this seemingly simple tune.