Exclusive | How Selenas Dreaming of You got a darker change after her murder: producer

It took the nightmare of Selena’s murder 30 years ago for her crossover hit “Dreaming of You” to become so deeply moving.“She had to pass away for the song to become what it is,” Guy Roche exclusively told The Post.“It took on a totally different character.“You don’t know what would have come out of it if she hadn’t passed away,” he added.

“I’m not sure the record would sound the same if she hadn’t passed away, really.”Just a few weeks before Selena was murdered on March 31, 1995 by her fan club president Yolanda Soldívar — who was denied parole on Friday — Roche went to the singer’s hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas to record with the Queen of Tejano.The ballad “Dreaming of You” — which had been previously offered to the “Crush on You” group the Jets — had been personally selected by the singer and became the title track of her big English crossover album, released posthumously in July 1995.“The label was making a lot of decisions of what songs she was going to do, but this was a song that she handpicked herself,” said Roche.“She sang a cappella a bit in the control room, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ She really made the song her own.”And the magic happened quickly.

“Honestly, the first couple of takes, I think the vibe, the intent was there, everything was great,” Roche recalled.“But she did do a lot of takes.

So I actually went back and listened diligently to all of them to see if there was something better.But most of it was from the first two takes.”Roche also produced the track “Captive Heart” on Selena’s “Dreaming of You” album.“She was excited about everything in English, because she didn’t get to sing a lot in English,” he said.

“She was just amazing, fun, laughing and smiling and cracking jokes.She was just wonderful.”However, the mood — and meaning — of “Dreaming of You” changed when Roche was finishing production of the song after the singer’s shocking murder a...