Break-Up Part 1: BAILE INoLVIDABLE
Bad Bunny’s unforgettable dance
“Tu me ensenaste a bailar” (You taught me to dance) — Bad Bunny
Neither Created Nor Destroyed
Where does love go after a relationship ends?
Over the next two weeks at Break My Heart, I want to answer this question through music. I want to take both sides of a break-up: the one who leaves versus the one who is left behind.
This week: the one who leaves.
BAILE INoLVIDABLE (“unforgettable dance” in English) is a track off Bad Bunny’s 2025 album DeBi TiRAR Mas FOToS (“I should have taken more photos”). It’s an up-beat salsa song with trumpets, piano, and a chorus of singers. You can read the translation of the lyrics here, but in short, it’s an ode to an ex-girlfriend who he loved, but left.
What does it mean to love and leave?
The album cover of DeBi TiRAR Mas FOToS.
Between the Lines
In this song, Benito sends up his ex-girlfriend in basically the musical version of fireworks. He has nothing but amazing things to say about her.
So why’d he leave?
To find that out, we have to listen to what he doesn’t say. So much of Bad Bunny’s music is the sound itself. I know that sounds obvious, but it’s not always the case with other artists, who might use music as a backdrop for their voices.
BAILE INoLVIDABLE opens with a moody techno beat and a sad line: “Pensaba que contigo iba a envejecer” (“I thought I would grow old with you”). Something went very wrong. Benito is sad, alone, guilty, and doesn’t want to talk. In maybe the most heartbreaking line, he talks about only seeing his ex again at the sunset.
The mood feels tragic, but the music and his voice build to a crescendo. He sings, “You were my unforgettable dance” as the first trumpets play.
Then boom—the music cuts out. We hear a grainy recording of an old man (in Spanish): “While you’re alive, you should love as much as you can.”
Now, the salsa begins. Cue the drums. The piano solo. I can’t help but dancing.
Benito sings the same lyrics again, but upbeat this time. We’re sad, but celebrating.
If art imitates life, he could be singing about a woman he began dating young: “you taught me to dance, you taught me to love.” They started in the same world, and then Benito Ocasio became Bad Bunny. They were in different worlds.
Benito sings about how this woman is unforgettable and special, “I could go to bed with anybody, but I don’t want to wake up with just anybody. Only you.” She’s better than the other women he dates now, who feel vapid, “the new girl is good, but it’s not your mouth.” I believe him when he says he didn’t leave for another woman.
But what he doesn’t say is that he outgrew his ex. I think this is the reason he left. I think he wanted to fully inhabit the fame he grew into, love-life and all.
So yes, at this party of life, his ex-girlfriend was an unforgettable dance. But now, it’s time to take a lap around the room.
Just taking a moment to recognize that YES Benito is salsa dancing in flip flops.
Thank You, Next
Gratitude needs space to grow. Staying when you don’t want to, or acting from a place of obligation, can create resentment. That’s claustrophobic. Space also lets us reflect. Benito admits, “soy culpable” (“I am guilty”).
When a relationship ends, I don’t think the love ends. I think it changes forms. In Benito’s case it morphed into gratitude. He says to her, “a kiss, a kiss wherever you are.” In other cases (like next week!), it can morph into resentment, deep longing, relief. It can make us stronger or it can eat away at us.
It’s a lot easier to say thanks when you’re the one leaving. You can take what you want and leave when you don’t want it anymore.
So yes, we feel Benito’s love and gratitude. The chorus sings, “no te puedo borrar, no te puedo olvidar”—he can’t erase this woman, he can’t forget her….
…But he can dump her.
“Y solamente verte en el atardecer” (and only see you in the sunset) — Bad Bunny
Comfort or Risk
I think to leave or to stay comes down to what we value in life.
Bad Bunny’s song is interesting to me because he’s not choosing between women, he’s choosing between lifestyles. Comfort or risk. Partnership or independence. One is not better than the other, it’s just what we value.
Does it make Benito a bad person that he wanted another life and left? Wouldn’t the alternative—wanting another life but staying—be worse? He’s honest about what he wants. He’s not trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He lets this woman go, even if it hurts them both in the short-term.
He emphasizes in the song how life goes by quick: “In this [life], one day I will leave” and “life is a party that one day ends.” He doesn’t want to waste his time—or hers—on something that doesn’t feel right.
“La nueva mama es bien, pero no es tu boquita” (the new girl is good, but it’s not your mouth) — Bad Bunny
How many of us have a gut feeling that a relationship isn’t right, but stay anyway? Maybe to avoid the discomfort of a break-up, or because the unknown feels scary, or because it feels wrong to leave after so much time? Maybe that’s considerate? Or does it put our discomfort above the other person’s well-being? I think once you know you want out, the most respectful thing to do is leave.
And really, this song has a huge amount of respect for the ex-girlfriend. In an album that pays homage to Benito’s roots, I think it says a lot that the stand-out song (in my opinion) celebrates his hometown girl.
When you grow up with someone, you either grow together or grow apart. But you’re going to grow. Yes, he had a connection with this girl. It was great, it was unique, it might never be felt with another woman again…but it’s a known entity.
Ultimately, I think Benito stepped away from this unforgettable dance so he could dance into the unknown.
So uhhhhh……….what does it feel like to be the one left behind??? The one who still wants that original relationship?
Come back next week for an album by another artist, all about the other side of a break up. To want someone really badly…who doesn’t want you back.
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