Amor Prohibido (song) - Background and Production

Background and Production

The song began its existence when Selena began humming a tune in her tour bus, while her brother and music producer, A.B. Quintanilla III, had an admiration for the tune and decided to play his guitar along with Selena's humming. Pete Astudillo, a former backup singer for the band, and Quintanilla III wrote down a few melodies. Selena had then began to sing about a couple who were forbidden to love each other, which became the central theme of the song. When Selena sat down with Quintanilla III and Astudillo, she decided to help write the song and had wanted it to be based on the true story of her grandparents, who were forbidden to love each other because their parents (Selena's great-grandparents) did not approve of their relationship because they belonged to different social classes. The song was written in less than a day and became important to Selena.

Magos Herrera recorded a demo of the song for Selena to record. Jorge Alberto Pino and Bebu Silvetti wrote the chord structure and the guitar part. Gregg Vickers was the assistant producer. The pre-production of the song began in Selena's father's recording studio Q-Productions on January 20, 1994. Brian "Red" Moore, a family friend, was brought in to remix the music while lead keyboardist Ricky Vela was in charge of the music sequencer during pre-production. The backing vocalists were Stephanie Lynn and Rick Alvarez; the backing vocals had a quarter note delay at 675 ms.

The recording of "Amor prohibido" began on January 26, 1994; it was the first song to be recorded for Amor prohibido. During recording, Selena added a melodic chant, "ooooh baby". Quintanilla III stated during an interview with MTV Tr3s that "Amor prohibido" would not be the same if Selena had not added the chants. Selena took two takes before Quintanilla III chose the take he felt would be best for the album. After the release of Amor prohibido in March 1994, Selena and Jose Behar, the head of EMI Latin, were deciding which song from the album would be released as the lead single. Quintanilla III wanted "Bidi bidi bom bom" to be the lead single, however, Selena and Behar pushed for "Amor prohibido".