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 country sensibility and the sort of intimate, confessional lyrics that would characterise 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 also find new layers of meaning emerging from the words. The privacy of his room, as he describes it 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 would take place – and so words like mi lucha, mi perdición, mi vida o mi muerte take on new resonances and add new poignant textures to this seemingly simple tune.

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