Rosalía didn’t just sing “Reliquia” on Saturday Night Live. She sang it on pointe. Introduced by host Shane Gillis on Saturday (Oct. 10), she performed the LUX ballad in black pointe shoes, a strapless black lace bodice and a full tulle tutu, against white drapes where shadows of hands and figures drifted past. Watch it below.
Later in the show she came back for “Magnolias,” the closing track on LUX, which SNL has also posted.
Read moreBad Bunny, Lana Del Rey and Slayer Are Your GTA VI Radio DJs
It was her second time as SNL’s musical guest, after a March 2022 debut with “Chicken Teriyaki” and “La Fama” (plus a 2021 cameo in Bad Bunny’s “La Noche de Anoche”). This time she arrived with the biggest record of her career behind her. LUX, sung in 13 languages, debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, her first top 10 there, and opened at No. 1 on five Billboard charts at once. Its tour just wrapped after 57 sold-out dates.
NBC’s promo for the episode played on exactly that. Kenan Thompson pitched “an album that blends pop and classical music in 14 languages,” and Rosalía shut him down: “That’s LUX, my album. I already made that. Sorry.” (Billboard counts 13.)
About that U2 song
The bigger talking point all week was Bono. On The Tonight Show on Wednesday (Oct. 7), Rosalía told Jimmy Fallon she has never met the man who wrote “The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)” for U2’s Carnaval de Luz, the band’s first album of new material in nine years. “I don’t know Bono,” she said. “But he texted me.”
He wanted to know whether some of his Spanish made sense. One word stumped her, and it turned out not to exist in standard Spanish. Her advice: “You know, I don’t know, but feel free to invent your own language!” She called the whole thing “insane” and “mind-blowing,” then sang a bit of “With or Without You” as proof she grew up on U2.
We normally just write songs about people in jail or dead people. You know, dead heroes, or trying to get them out of jail. This is just celebrating somebody just because they’re an extraordinary artist.
Bono, on why U2 wrote “The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)”, Rolling Stone
Don’t expect a duet, though. A U2 spokesperson told Billboard the song was inspired by her but doesn’t feature her vocals. Per producer Jacknife Lee, via NME, it began around 2017 as an Edge demo called “Kuti Rocker,” and the album version is its 196th iteration.
Fallon also got her best New York story: she dressed up for Sunday service at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, queued in the cold and was turned away because the church was full. She bought shoes instead. “God said ‘no,’ but my outfit said ‘yes,’” she joked. Watch the interview below.
Her next collaboration with an Irish band is a real one: she sings on “Where Is Gone?” from Fontaines D.C.’s Dopamine Chamber, out Oct. 16 via XL Recordings. On Oct. 22 she accepts the Billboard Hall of Fame Award at the Billboard Latin Music Awards in Miami, where she is also a finalist in six categories. Carnaval de Luz arrives Nov. 13.
- Show
- Saturday Night Live, Oct. 10
- Host
- Shane Gillis
- Song
- “Reliquia,” from LUX (2025)
- U2 album
- Carnaval de Luz, Nov. 13
- Next
- Billboard Latin Music Awards, Oct. 22
