“I have seven lives, because I’ve been close to ending it many times…if it wasn’t for those seven lives, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here.” Only four months after this reflection, Anthony Flores he left. “Burn” his seventh and final life. He was 33 and had just ‘stripped his clothes off’ and showed us his innermost thoughts on what was his last album, ‘Cosas mías’ (1994). ‘Seven lives’ was one of his ‘personal things’. His “special way” of apologizing to his ex-wife and singing “a little ‘mea culpa'”. On February 18, 1995, it reached number 1 on the LOS40.
Antonio, a wreck
Finally, Antonio Flores had overcome that time when “it was a wreck that he was walking down the street without really knowing what he wanted.” Those years when he couldn’t find people who believed in him: “I was demoralized, I no longer knew what it was for and I threw myself a bit into the street, towards things that everyone already knows”, he admitted in an interview for Cadena Dial. “But this moment of meeting a woman, having a child and it changed my life. I started looking in the mirror and started loving myself and after composing Rosario’s LP (De ley) confidence and strength came back to me… and to prove to myself that I was not a piece of shit and that I could bring a lot to the world of music”.
Antonio Flores on a motorcycle / Pepe Franco (Getty Images)
Antonio, nude
And one of the things he brought to music was My things (24/05/1994). Six years had passed since the previous one, Gran Via (1988), and what we found was a new Antonio Flores. “That’s why it’s called ‘My stuff’, because I don’t talk about one thing in general anymore, about the streets, about crime,” he said in an interview with 40 TV. “I talk more about what my experiences of these five years are, what my marriage was like, what my daughter meant to me, to come in and see her being born… in short, ‘my business’”.
in which is considered his best album, the best seller of the four he released, and the lastundressed, showed her interior and your innermost thoughts. Alba (dedicated to his daughter), Woman’s body, heart in the air, Isla de Palma oh seven lives. Very chosen themes that were born in his room – “in the sanctuary where I think, my coffin, my purgatory and my heaven, all at the same time” – and that he recorded with these people who had restored his confidence and whom he had met during the making of his sister’s album: Fernando Illan and Arturo Soriano.
The “seven lives” of Antonio
“These seven lives have a cat…”, Antonio sang in what is one of his most memorable anthems – and the third single from My things -. even his mother, Lola Flores, likened her son to kittens for his ability to dodge dangers: “My son died about seven timesHe had all car accidents have and have. And then, with drugs, they practically left him for dead in Buenos Aires.who called me Lolita and said to me: ‘My brother is dying, he is dying…'”, says ‘La Faraona’ in El Mundo Magazine, in 1994.
Antonio and Lola Flores / Gianni Ferrari (Getty Images)
“six lives I have already burned”… the middle composition of the Flores was, without a doubt, a first-person confession. The acknowledgment of those mistakes that had repeatedly brought him to the brink of death. “Yes, I’ve burned quite a bit. What happens is that I’m a very strong person, physically and mentally. So there’s nothing that can take me. And I have seven lives , really, because I was about to end up a lot, in car accidents, in a lot of things, in stupid things you do when things don’t work out for you. luck, or for these seven lifetimes that I have, maybe I wouldn’t be here talking to you. The thing is, I am”, said Antonio in an interview conducted by Cristina Tárrega for Cadena Dial in January 1995.
Antonio’s “mea culpa”
“And I want to live this last one by your side”… seven lives It is dedicated to Ana Villa, the woman who gave Antonio stability for a few years and temporarily saved him from his demons. They had married in March 1986 and as a result of this relationship, their only daughter, Alba Flores, was born. Although they divorced some time later, Antonio and Ana have always remained close. “It’s a little ‘mea culpa’ to a woman…it’s dedicated to my ex-wife.”
“Damn, damn my life”… For her sisters, it’s a very special song. According to Rosario:It was the first time that my brother let himself go 100%.” For Lolita, “it’s a song that I really like because as a brother I knew exactly what he meant and the songs, when they tell you more than what you hear, these are the songs that directly touch your heart”.
The wonder of the “new Antonio”
“Calm my life, I broke with the past”… For the man from Madrid, My things It was a start over.”a business card of what’s to come…after five years, he wanted people to listen to him and comment the new Antonio Flores”. And people listened and gave their opinion: six months after its launch, it received a gold record (50,000 copies). The artist was overwhelmed with joy: “I’m really surprised because I didn’t expect people to like the album as well as they did and I didn’t expect to be stopped in the street to tell me what you like about the disc. it really surprised me. it surprised me a lot“.
Antonio, nº1 in LOS40
Siete vidas became the second and last number 1 of the LOS40 by Anthony Flores. The first was I can’t fall in love with youin January 1982. Although the first two singles from My things – female body there Alba – they had entered the list of the ‘Principal’, he was seven lives the song that brought him back to life on February 18, 1995. He died just three months after performing it.
After his death on May 30, 1995, sales of My things they exploded to achieve the quintuple platinum disc (500,000 copies). It was the best-selling album of that year in Spain and Antonio, surely, would continue without getting out of his enormous astonishment…