Ay Mamá
It has performed well on the Spanish charts and music streaming services, reaching number one and winning three Song of the Year awards, and entered Spanish pop culture both as a feminist anthem and as a viral phenomenon due to its unusual staging at Benidorm Fest.
Production and composition
Paula Ribó González began performing as singer-songwriter Rigoberta Bandini in 2020 after having been in several girl groups in the 2010s. Ribó performs as Rigoberta Bandini with her band composed of her partner, Esteban Navarro, and younger cousins, Juan Barenys and Memé (Belén Barenys). On "Ay mamá", Ribó and Memé provide vocals, Navarro is the keyboardist, and Barenys is their percussionist. Bandini became one of the most popular singers in Spain over the COVID-19 pandemic, with 2021 song "Perra" becoming a "feminist anthem" for its theme of vindicating femininity and for the wordplay of its title, "perra". Ribó has said that she does not only write songs about women but that femininity is a large inspiration on her work. Wiwibloggs noted that "Ay mamá" has choral verses build into an electropop chorus, which they had previously described as Bandini's particular style and something that is "anything but safe and lame" even within the context of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). During composition of the song, the band experimented with different synthesizer sounds, and the line "I don't know why people are so scared of our tits" was originally being recorded with a vocoder.
Ribó wrote "Ay mamá" as a tribute to her own mother, around ten years before releasing it, when she was 23; after becoming a mother herself she decided to put the song out. She composed it on the piano and began developing it for submission to Benidorm Fest, Spain's ESC preselection, eight years after originally writing it; she felt there was something special in the song and decided to develop it for the contest, adding that she "liked the demo, but [was not] in love with it" and "would withdraw if by the deadline [she] wasn't convinced about it" – she said she did love the final version. One of the more significant things she changed was the opening line. In the final version it is "You, who bled for so many months through your life", while originally it had been "You, who pulled my head out of your pussy"; Ribó changed this knowing that such explicit a lyric would not be accepted for the ESC and for wanting to make a song that could resonate with everyone from childhood to old age, later saying that she felt Spain was still a country that generally balked even at the word "tit".
According to Ribó, the song is a "feminist scream" created to "pay tribute to mothers and all women" as well as "transcending maternity", as not all women become mothers, to speak to the inherent power and unity in being a woman. With its theme of feminism, the song also denounces censorship of women's breasts and celebrates motherhood; in an interview with Spanish broadcaster RTVE, Ribó said that as well as the song criticising constant public opinions of women's bodies there is humour in the lyrics, that "[she] really [likes] writing and for [her] the lyrics are important. In this case, in addition to talking about the strength of femininity, in this case of mothers, it is a song that amuses [her]".
The lyrics of the song include "Let's stop the city by taking a breast out in the style of Delacroix", referring to French artist Eugène Delacroix, who painted many nude and topless women, and specifically his artwork Liberty Leading the People. The painting depicts Liberty personified as a woman with her breasts out leading liberated people over the bodies of soldiers; the lyrics of "Ay mamá" invoke the same personification, calling for a "breast revolution". Delacroix's painting had also been censored on Facebook in 2018 for depicting female nipples. Originally, the name Delacroix was not in the lyrics, with the song having a different pre-chorus. Interviewed in 2021, Ribó said that the image of Liberty in Delacroix's painting still moves her.
Reception and impact
The Heraldo de Aragón wrote in May 2022 that the song had become "one of the feminist anthems of Spain" and praised its ability to get people both dancing and thinking. In the same month, Cosmopolitan wrote that it had found more success than most songs that do represent Spain at the ESC ever achieve.
The song was chosen for the soundtrack of the Telecinco docuseries Montealto: Regreso a la casa – about Rocío Carrasco visiting the mansion of her late mother, Rocío Jurado – in January 2022. It was also used across Telecinco and other Mediaset España media from its release in 2021, including in news features produced about censorship of female nipples.
"Ay mamá", and Bandini's other music, received a boost in popularity following the Benidorm Fest appearance: in the week after Benidorm Fest, Bandini entered the global top 200 artists by streaming and downloads across major platforms at #179; "Ay mamá" was streamed over 8 million times on Spotify; and Bandini had the top two most-watched music videos and became the most-watched music artist on YouTube Spain, the first woman and third Spanish musician to achieve this. By May 2022, "Ay mamá" had been streamed over 22 million times on Spotify.
Various politicians – including government ministers – expressed their support for the song, while some conservative politicians, including the leaders of the center-right People's Party and far-right Vox, attacked the song. On 8 March 2022, during the International Women's Day marches and protests in Spain, the song was played at many of the demonstrations. The song has been politicised by different people and parties in Spain: Irene Montero, Minister of Equality, used references to the song and its lyrics to support her campaign to introduce more feminist laws for democratic equality; Congresswoman Macarena Olona has turned around the lyrics of the song in order to criticise Montero's campaign; and writer Maria de la Pau Janer published an opinion piece that used the song's title and its lyrics about menstruation to support her argument that while menstruation should be discussed and celebrated more, Spain's 2022 menstrual leave bill would result in women being passed over for jobs.
Describing 2022 as "the year of the boob" in August 2022, El Mundo wrote that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had threatened to pull Spain out of the ESC if broadcasters censored Ribó performing topless, should that have happened, with his cabinet supporting the idea of Ribó performing topless at Benidorm Fest.
Catalan parody sketch show Polònia performed a parody of the song in February 2022. Titled "Ay papá", it was performed by Pep Plaza imitating Felipe VI, the King of Spain, as he humorously criticises his father, Juan Carlos I, and the scandals that have landed Juan Carlos in the news in the years following his abdication and relocation to the Middle East. It also featured an imitator as Alaska, a Benidorm Fest presenter, giving frank commentary about the voting system following criticisms of Benidorm Fest's votes. Spanish music comedy duo Los Morancos recorded a parody called "Ay Omá" lampooning the state of health services in Spain, particularly for older women. The viral Benidorm Fest performance of "Ay mamá" was recreated by Susi Caramelo on Tu cara me suena during the week of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.
Accolades
Year | Organisation | Award | Result | Ref(s). |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | Premios MIN | Radio 3 Song of the Year Award | Won | |
Best Original Lyrics | Nominated | |||
Premis RAC105 | Best Song | Won | ||
Premios +Músicas | Best Song | Won | ||
Best Pop Record | Won | |||
iCat | Best Song Not in Catalan | Won | ||
2023 | Premios MIN | Best Video | Won |
Chart performance
It reached number one on the Spanish charts on 28 January 2022, becoming the first song that failed to represent Spain at the ESC to top the country's chart since "Lo Malo" by Aitana and Ana Guerra in 2018. The song received a platinum certification by PROMUSICAE on 1 March. After debuting in the top 100 in December 2021, it spent 36 continuous weeks on the chart, leaving in the first week of September 2022. It re-entered the top 100 in the second week of October 2022 upon the release of the album La Emperatriz, on which it features.
Cover art
The single's cover art depicts the tarot card of The Empress from the Major Arcana of the Tarot of Marseilles cards. Ribó explained that the card is a symbol of freedom and feminine power, and a card she has felt a connection to.