In the genre of pop songs written by mothers who watch their children grow up and become independent, we find compositions such as ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ (1981) by ABBA or the recent ‘A Mother’s House’ (2022) by Björk, which features the guest voice of his daughter, Ísadora. ‘A star’ by La Bien Querida has also recently been added to this list.
‘A star’ is a song that La Bien Querida dedicates to her daughter, so biographical that its very title includes the name of Ana Fernández-Villaverde’s daughter, Estrella. In Ana’s words, it is a piece that “speaks about the transition from childhood to adolescence.”
For Sonido Muchacho, La Bien Querida’s record label, ‘Una Estrella’ “arises from the deep and endearing love of a mother for her daughter” and “describes the protection and irrepressible love that a mother feels towards her children, when they are little “They grow little and move their knowledge away from that family root towards independent branches, with their own experiences and beliefs.”
To convey this message of maternal love, the author of ‘Paprika’ (2023) chooses a pop-rock ballad format with a slightly borderline sound, designed under production by David Rodríguez. In the lyrics, Ana deals with the conflict between her need to protect and to let go. “The days go by and you grow / May not long pass without saying I love you,” La Bien Querida rhymes in a song that also touches on the theme of her own mortality: she asks the “angels” that “if one day If I’m missing, they can take care of you.
“You escape from me like a cat, you escape from me like time, like water between my fingers, you escape from my hands” is another of the highlighted passages in the first preview of the next album by La Bien Querida. It is the same message that ABBA sang in the aforementioned song, using the same expression, but in a different language. Mother’s love, of course, is universal.
La Bien Querida performs this Thursday, January 9 at the Inverfest 2025 festival in Madrid, sharing the bill with the revelation artist Janire.
