Following Emilia Pérez’s awards season run, Selena Gomez featured a song with Spanish lyrics on her and Benny Blanco’s album, I Said I Love You First. The fourth track, 'Ojos Tristes' ('Sad Eyes' in English) takes the chorus from Jeanette’s 1981 song 'El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes' ('The Boy With Sad Eyes,' see an English translation here of the lyrics) and changes the story a bit in the verses.
The Marías were featured on the track, with lead vocalist María Zardoya singing the song’s Spanish second verse and joining Gomez on its bilingual chorus. In this version, the song depicts a woman looking back on a man she left behind.
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In the first verse, Gomez sings, 'It’s not your fault I have to leave / Please don’t you look that way, baby / Those sad eyes, sad eyes / You know I don’t wanna say goodbye / Don’t cry, don’t cry / Just hold me for one last time.'
In the second verse, Zardoya sings: 'Han pasado dos años / Te sigo pensando en todos mis sentidos / Antes eran tus ojos lloviendo en otoño / Y ahora son los míos / Cómo cambió, amor / Felices éramos los dos / Y ahora lloro, por Dios / Tristeza en mí amaneció,' she sings. (In English: 'Two years have passed / I still think of you in every way / Before, they were your eyes raining in autumn / And now they’re mine / How you changed, love / We were both happy / And now I cry, for God’s sake / Sadness dawned within me.')
So is the song about any ex in Gomez’s life? Maybe not. As the singer is happily engaged to Blanco, whom she calls the 'love of my life,' it may draw instead from the experiences of other people in her life.
Gomez revealed that she wrote some songs about her friendships too. In the past few years, 'I’ve evolved so much, and I have experienced life with new people,' she said on Spotify’s Countdown To.... 'I’ve had to go through transitions with friends and lose people in my life and gain new people, and I’ve had a whole new life forever so it’s up for whatever people want [to interpret songs as]. But to me, it was about both of our [her and Blanco’s] pasts and our history and also just inspired by friends and relationships, like some songs were actually meant [to be] about friendships in my life, and I think that’s what to me the album was about.'
'Ojos Tristes' tells a story about heartbreak and how love endures. Read through the lyrics below, alongside English translations, and listen to the track:
Verse 1: Selena Gomez
No, it’s not hard to see
That you probably feel worse than me
It’s not your fault I have to leave
Please don’t you look that way, baby
Pre-Chorus: Selena Gomez
Those sad eyes, sad eyes
You know I don’t wanna say goodbye
Don’t cry, don't cry
Just hold me for one last time
Chorus: María Zardoya and Selena Gomez
El muchacho de los ojos tristes
Vive solo y necesita amor
Como el aire, necesita verme
Como al sol, lo necesito yo
El muchacho de los ojos tristes (That boy is sad)
Ha encontrado al fin una razón (I wanna hold him)
Para hacer que su mirada ría (And seize the night)
Con mis besos y mi gran amor
(Chorus in English:
The boy with sad eyes
Lives alone and needs love
Like the air, he needs to see me
Like the sun, I need him
The boy with sad eyes (That boy is sad)
Has finally found a reason (I wanna hold him)
To make his eyes laugh (And seize the night)
With my kisses and my great love)
Verse 2: María Zardoya
Han pasado dos años
Te sigo pensando en todos mis sentidos
Antes eran tus ojos lloviendo en otoño
Y ahora son los míos
(Verse 2 in English:
Two years have passed
I still think of you in every way
Before, they were your eyes raining in autumn
And now they’re mine)
Pre-Chorus: María Zardoya
Cómo cambió, amor
Felices éramos los dos
Y ahora lloro, por Dios
Tristeza en mí amaneció
(Pre-Chorus in English:
How you changed, love
We were both happy
And now I cry, for God’s sake
Sadness dawned within me)
Chorus: María Zardoya and Selena Gomez
El muchacho de los ojos tristes
Vive solo y necesita amor
Como el aire, necesita verme
Como al sol, lo necesito yo
El muchacho de los ojos tristes (That boy is sad)
Ha encontrado al fin una razón (I wanna hold him)
Para hacer que su mirada ría (And seize the night)
Con mis besos y mi gran amor
(Chorus in English:
The boy with sad eyes
Lives alone and needs love
Like the air, he needs to see me
Like the sun, I need him
The boy with sad eyes (That boy is sad)
Has finally found a reason (I wanna hold him)
To make his eyes laugh (And seize the night)
With my kisses and my great love)
Outro: María Zardoya and Selena Gomez
La-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da
La-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da
La-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da
La-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da
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