“María” (1995) made Ricky Martin a star beyond the Spanish-speaking world. María is a woman who's wild, magnetic and impossible to pin down; she drives him crazy, she makes him dance, she disappears. The famous chorus counts in — one, two, three — and calls out the steps: a little step forward, a little step back.
The music is flamenco guitar meeting Latin pop and a dance beat, and a remix version became a hit across Europe and Latin America a few years before “Livin' la Vida Loca”.
It's a great song for numbers and directions, and for the clipped forms of spoken Spanish: “para adelante” becomes “pa'lante”, “para atrás” becomes “pa'trás”.