Rosalia: “La Perla” (2025)
Spanish singer Rosalía’s momentous fourth album Lux is a trove of bold sounds and bold themes, with lyrics in 14 languages.
“La Perla” (“The Pearl”), featuring a collaboration with Mexican trio Yahritza y su Esencia, was a chart-topping single in Spain.
The song is presumed to be about the singer’s ex-fiancé Rauw Alejandro. Its title refers to a historic neighborhood of old San Juan, Puerto Rico, but also is a term used derisively to mock a sexually promiscuous person.
Classy instrumentation. Blunt message. Weren’t we just expressing out admiration for Lily Allen for a bold, confessional breakup record?
Thank God for bad men in bad relationships and the women who keep making great art from it all.
Lyric translation:
Hello, thief of peace
minefield
for my sensitivity
Playboy
a champion
spends the money he has and also the money he doesn’t
He’s so charming
star of unreason
a mirage
Olympic gold medal to the bastard
you have the podium
of great disappointment
Local disappointment national
heartbreaker an emotional
terrorist the world’s biggest disaster
It’s a pearl,
no one trusts
it, it’s a pearl
one of great care
The king of the 13, 14
does not know what it is to contribute
he is the center of the world
and then what else will matter?
You finally go to therapy
you go to the psychologist and also a psychiatrist,
but what good is
it if you always lie more than you talk,
they will make you a monument
to dishonesty.
I don’t feel sorry for
you who stays with you drains
himself always invites
himself if he can lives in someone else’s house
Red flag walking
tremendous disaster
he will say that it was not him
who was his doppelgänger
Well, of course
not referring to him as an icon
would be a reductionist narrative for him, you know what I mean?
Never lend him anything, he won’t return
it Being a loose
cannon It’s
his specialty
Loyalty
and fidelity
is a language
that will
never understand
His masterpiece
his collection of bras
if you ask him for help
will disappear
Local Disappointment: National
Heartbreaker: An Emotional
Terrorist, The World’s Greatest Disaster
It’s a pearl,
no one trusts
it, it’s a pearl,
one of great care
Every Moment Has A Song 