Como La Flor
Selena's signature song began with a decade-old memory of plastic flowers at a Sacramento concert -- and closed, at the end of her life, exactly where it was written.
By Song Reviews · September 10, 2026
Greatest of All Time!Selena's signature song began with a decade-old memory of plastic flowers at a Sacramento concert -- and closed, at the end of her life, exactly where it was written.
“Como La Flor,” written by A.B. Quintanilla and Pete Astudillo, took ten years to become a song. Quintanilla traced the idea back to 1982, at a Sacramento concert where he saw a family selling illuminated plastic flowers – an image that sat unused until he wrote the melody in twenty minutes after abruptly stepping out of a hotel shower in Bryan, Texas. Released as a single in June 1992, it peaked at No. 6 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart and became the song most identified with Selena’s rise, a foundational record in Tejano’s commercial breakthrough into the wider Latin pop market.
Selena reportedly left the studio before finishing her own backing vocals on the track; Quintanilla completed those parts himself, meaning the released record carries a small, uncredited piece of the songwriter’s own voice inside the singer’s signature song. The closing detail is the one that gives the song its weight in hindsight: her performance at the February 26, 1995 Houston Astrodome show was later called her finest rendition of the song, and her actual final live performance, twelve days before her death in March 1995, took place in Bryan – the same city where the song’s melody had been written thirteen years after the image that inspired it.
Greatest of All Time. – a decade-old memory turned into Selena’s signature song, closing her career in the same city where it began.
Hero image: “Como La Flor” promotional CD cover (Mexico release), 1992, EMI Music Mexico/EMI Latin. Used under fair use for editorial commentary.