Tango Time Machine — Tango Decoder

What does it all mean? (Moneda de cobre, 1942)

In this blog I explore the lyrics of songs from the Golden Age of tango. Tango lyrics were often written by some of the best poets of Argentina and Uruguay. Many exhibit notable literary qualities. Some rise to the level of real poetry. They also shed light on the history and culture of tango.

Personally, I've found that knowing what the lyrics mean enhances my appreciation and enjoyment of tango music and dance. Has it made me a better dancer? Perhaps. It certainly has added another dimension of feeling to my dance. For example, the music of MONEDA DE COBRE (see below) touched my heart on first hearing, long before I listened closely to the lyrics. Now that I know what the lyrics mean, the song is even more meaningful to me. The tragic theme affects me emotionally, stirring me to dance with greater passion. Isn't that what it's all about?

As a native speaker of English, I've found that interpreting tango lyrics is an enjoyable way to build my Spanish-language vocabulary and reading skills. In that sense, these versions are works in progress, reflecting my growing language ability. I am sure I'll make plenty of mistakes. Feel free to correct me if you think I've gone off the track. You're welcome to post your own versions, too. 

There's more to say by way of introduction to the blog, but I think I'll just go ahead and post my Tango Decoder version of the tango MONEDA DE COBRE. There'll be more musings on tango and life in forthcoming entries.

Moneda de Cobre (Copper Coin) 1942
Music: Carlos Viván
Lyric: Horacio Sanguinetti
English-language translation Copyright © 2014 by Michael Krugman.

Your father was blond, a drunk, a hoodlum,
Your mother was black with broad pink lips.*
You were born mulata--mixed--with blue eyes
and wavy, coal-black hair.
You grew up in the mire of a poor neighborhood,
turned twenty in a cabaret,
And today they call you Moneda de Cobre, Copper Coin,
Old and sad and worth very little.

Moneda de cobre, I know you were beautiful back then;
With your pink wings,*
Like a butterfly, I saw you fly,
And then I saw you fall...
Moneda de fango*—tarnished coin,
How well you used to dance the tango!
I know that you were beautiful back then,
Like a bronze queen,
There in the "Folies Bergere."

[That sad barrio full of mud and pain
Now vanished, along with your youth...
Twenty years have passed, my dear,
Your parents, gone, the streetlamps, gone.
Perhaps you got lost out on the corner,
Looking for the house where you were born;
Keep looking, don't stop, don't show the pain...
Don't cry, mulata, what good would it do?]

[Tango Decoder version Copyright © 2013, Michael Krugman]

Notes:

The lyrics given here are those of the Ricardo Tanturi recording of 1942 (Alberto Castillo singing). The military dictatorship that came to power in 1943 exercised censorship over tango lyrics. The 1943 recording of the song (by Lucio Demare's orchestra with Raul Berón) featured sanitized lyrics. The father is described as buen mozo (good-looking) instead of drunk, and the mother is morena (brunette) instead of black. The forbidden word cabaret was expunged, replaced by the placeholder phrase, "total, para qué" (for what it's worth, what's the use, etc). The censorship of tango lyrics was lifted in 1949 by Juan Perón after a meeting with a group of widely admired tango lyricists including Enrique Santos Discépolo, Homero Manzi, and others. 

* Broad pink lips: The original is labios malvón. Malvón is geranium, a flower with broad, pink petals, hence the mother is a black woman with broad, pink lips. Malvón appears in many tango lyrics. There is even a tango called just that, MALVÓN, recorded by Ricardo Tanturi in 1943. Maybe we'll see an English-language version of that in a future post.

* Pink wings: Presumably a costume that the protagonist wore in a show at the "Folies Bergere" cabaret.

* Moneda de fango: Fango means mud--an ever-present reality of the Buenos Aires slums--but it also has the implication of scandal or disgrace, so I translated it as "tarnished," which fits the context nicely. Fango is one of the few words that rhyme with tango, so it shows up a lot in tango lyrics. Rango (rank, status, or stature) is another. CANCIÓN DE RANGO employs all three.

[Spanish original follows]

Tu padre era rubio, borracho y malevo,
tu madre era negra con labios malvón.
Mulata naciste con ojos de cielo
y mota en el pelo de negro carbón.
Creciste entre el lodo de un barrio muy pobre,
cumpliste veinte años en un cabaret.
Y ahora te llaman moneda de cobre
porque vieja y triste muy poco valés.

Moneda de cobre,
yo sé que ayer fuiste hermosa;
yo con tus alas de rosa
te vi volar mariposa
y después te vi caer...
Moneda de fango,
¡Qué bien bailabas el tango!...
Yo sé que ayer fuiste hermosa,
como una reina de bronce,
allá en el "Folies Berger."

[Aquel barrio triste de barro y de latas
igual que tu vida desapareció...
Pasaron veinte años, querida mulata,
no existen tus padres, no existe el farol.
Quizás en la esquina te quedes perdida
buscando la casa que te vio nacer;
seguí, no te pares, no muestres la herida...
No llores mulata, total, ¡para qué!]

 [Tango Decoder's subtitled bilingual video of MONEDA DE COBRE on YouTube] 

 

Tango and Cinema

Tango and film are contemporaneous. They were born and grew up together. There is no silent tango, but there is early, wordless tango, in which music and dance are the sole means of expression. The year 1903 is the primordial moment in the history of both forms: Ángel Villoldo composes El Choclo, and Edwin S. Porter lenses the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery.

Alma de Bohemio - Roberto Firpo 

 In the theaters of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, tango and film merge. While the silent images unfold on the screen in black and white, orchestras play tangos from the loge or the pit. Ojos Negros by Vicente Greco mirrors the gloom of Nosferatu, while Robert Firpo's Alma de Bohemio sets the mood for the feverish chariot action of Ben-Hur. The spectators are cinephiles who come to see films with tango accompaniment or music lovers who come to hear tango with a film backdrop. The latter bunch follows the music. When Julio de Caro and his band, or Ángel D'Agostino and his, or Vardaro and Pugliese with their sextet change venues, the fans go with them. They don't care what film is playing; they just want to hear their favorite orchestra.

 Beginning in 1925 there are attempts to synchronize recorded music with motion pictures. At the point in the screenplay where a singer is supposed to perform a tango, the real thing is played on a Gramophone. The rest of the scenes pass in silence. During showings of Adiós, Argentina, for example, silence reigns until the moment that Libertad Lamarque sings the title song. For the rest of the show, not a peep.

Some years later there’s an attempt to merge sound and vision for the length of a whole film. This approach is a total bust: when the film breaks, as happens all the time, the voice and music keep going. The film is spliced together and they get it rolling again, but there's no way to catch up with the runaway soundtrack. The audience has to endure this incoherence for the remainder of the show.

[The Vitaphone sound film system (1926). Engineer E. B. Craft (l.) holds the phonograph record that carries the sound.]

 The last years of the decade see the invention of the Movietone sound system, which puts an optical soundtrack on the same reel as the picture. Some filmmakers, Chaplin among them, think the new technology signals the death of cinematic art; they cling to the silent form. They are soon proven wrong.

Carlos Gardel is one of the first to foresee that sound will triumph and that the cinema will be the popular art of the century. When the first sound cameras arrive in Argentina, he makes ten short films of tangos framed by brief dialogues. Appearing with Gardel—singing, playing, acting—are his guitarists Aguilar, Barbieri y Riverol, bandleader Francisco Canaro, the poet and lyricist Enrique Santos Discépolo.

The year is 1930. It is clear to Gardel that cinema is the medium that will make him an international star. By '31 he's already in Paris shooting Luces de Buenos Aires at the studios of Joinville-le-Pont. From then until his premature death in 1935 he spends more of his life in the studio than he does on the stage.

 

[From Tango, 1933. El Cachafaz is front and center at the start of the clip.]

In the year 1933, tango and film were conjoined in a film titled simply, Tango. It features the best singers of the era: Azucena Maizani, Mercedes Simone, Tita Merello, Alberto Gómez, and Libertad Lamarque accompanied by the orchestras of Juan de Dios Filiberto, Osvaldo Fresedo, Pedro Maffia, Juan D'Arienzo, and Edgardo Donato. Amidst the hurly-burly of dancers from the conventillos (cheap boarding houses) and peringundines (disreputable “dance academies”) appears the elegant silhouette of El Cachafaz. This quintessential tango moment is projected worldwide. From then on, theaters all over America and Europe demand films featuring tango. 

Tango becomes a measure of cinematic value. A film succeeds or fails based on its tango content.  No one cares about the plot any more; only the music matters. In the film Ídolos de la Radio, the Argentine producers offer little more than a parade of tangueros taking turns at a microphone, and this formula strikes a nerve. Some of the greats who were missing from the earlier film are included now: Ignacio Corsini, Dorita Davis, Canaro. From the thirties on every tango singer aspires to this new path. Those with acting talent succeed while those without are consigned to the stage or withdraw to the closed world of clubs and cabarets.

From Musica y poesía del tango, pp. 161-163, by Antonio Pau (Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Antonio Pau Pedrón. English version by Michael Krugman, Copyright © 2013. 

Pugliese and "Recuerdo"

From Musica y poesía del tango, pp. 133-134, by Antonio Pau (Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Antonio Pau Pedrón. English version by Michael Krugman, Copyright © 2013.

 Rarely has it happened that a single tango, especially one specific recorded version of it, could stand as the summit of a composer’s output. Nevertheless, it happened that way in the case of Osvaldo Pugliese’s Recuerdo, penned when he was just nineteen, and the recording made by Julio de Caro’s orchestra on November 9, 1926. It is inarguably the high point of that composer’s long and brilliant career.

Recuerdo - Julio De Caro

When Recuerdo was played, one had the sensation that a window had been opened, a gust of fresh air rearranging the contents of the room. Everything bright and vital had been buried under a pile of dull, repetitive stuff. Recuerdo sorted it out in an instant, bringing the brightness to the top where it could be seen. 

Pugliese’s rhythms showed that what had come before was not the whole story, that tango could be much more than that. You didn’t need the singer, with his song of sorrow, suffering, and love betrayed. It was enough to draw a circle from which sound struggled to escape, tracing jagged, anxious silhouettes in its desperate flight. And the composition of Recuerdo is just that, the wake that trails behind a fleeing melody.

 The notes of Recuerdo were not written all at once; they are not the fruit of ecstatic inspiration. Over many months Pugliese kept polishing the rhythms, honing them, until he could do no more. Then he wrote out a clean copy. Starting out this way is not without risk. To create a masterpiece like this at the age of nineteen would seem to have only two possible outcomes: to repeat oneself or to go silent. Pugliese did neither. He knew that for him, inspiration lay there, on the lined music paper, his hands skimming over the keys. And so it was. Inspiration came. Not always, of course. Some Pugliese tangos are merely workmanlike, others are truly inspired. The former are good, because he was a dedicated, industrious composer. But the latter are extraordinary: La Yumba, A los artistas plásticos, Adiós Bardi, Corazoneando, Cardo y Malvón. There is no other tango composer who renews himself with each composition.

 To Recuerdo, which was conceived as an instrumental, lyrics were added by the poet Eduardo Moreno. The composer didn’t object.

Mujer, de mi poema mejor;

Mujer, yo nunca tuve un amor.

Perdón si eres mi gloria ideal,

Perdón, serás mi verso inicial.

The lyric, equal parts touching and awkward, is explained by the age of the author: fifteen.

Recuerdo has been one of the most frequently recorded tangos, with or without vocal. But seventy-five years and several generations of musicians have passed, and the most definitive version, the tightest and most precise, continues to be that of Julio de Caro and his Sextet.

 

Ventarrón: Faded glory

We've all danced to this bouncy, arrastre-drenched number as recorded by the Orquesta Típica Victor. It's pure tango joy! But what do the words say? Ventarrón is easy to decode, a "Strong Wind" (as illustrated by the cover of the sheet music, right). But who is this Strong Wind? And what are they saying about him? Turns out, he's a well known barrio character; his tough-guy exploits have been on everyone's lips for years. But maybe he's not such a tough guy after all....

Our original English-language version of VENTARRÓN was published three years ago. This updated version was created with the indispensable assistance and insight of María Rosa Braile.

Our subtitled video of Ada Falcón's performance of VENTARRÓN in Spanish and English is below, followed by face-to-face translation with explanatory notes. We chose the Falcón version because 1) it's great and 2) it contains the full lyrics, unlike the more familiar danceable version recorded by the Orquesta Típica Victor. Next time you dance to it, you'll know the back story. We hope it will enhance your enjoyment of the song as you listen and as you dance!

Ventarrón (1933) 
Music: Pedro Maffia*
Lyric: José Horacio Staffolani
Tango Decoder version: Michael Krugman

Por tu fama, por tu estampa, sos el malevo mentado del hampa; sos el más taura entre todos los tauras, sos el mismo Ventarrón. ¿Quién te iguala por tu rango en las canyengues quebradas del tango, en la conquista de los corazones, si se da la ocasión?   Entre el malevaje, Ventarrón a vos te llaman... Ventarrón, por tu coraje, por tus hazañas todos te aclaman... A pesar de todo, Ventarrón dejó Pompeya y se fue tras de la estrella que su destino le señaló.      Muchos años han pasado y sus guapezas y sus berretines los fue dejando por los cafetines como un castigo de Dios. Solo y triste, casi enfermo, con sus derrotas mordiéndole el alma, volvió el malevo buscando su fama que otro ya conquistó.      Ya no sos el mismo, Ventarrón, de aquellos tiempos. Sos cartón para el amigo y para el maula un pobre cristo. Y al sentir un tango compadrón y retobado, recordás aquel pasado, las glorias guapas de Ventarrón.

By your looks, by your reputation, you’re a gangster, a made man.* You’re the toughest of the tough guys, you’re the same Ventarrón! Who can equal your distinction in dancing bawdy, brazen tangos,* in the conquest of hearts, if you get the chance? Among the thugs and thieves, Ventarrón, they call you.... "Strong Wind," for your courage, for your exploits everyone applauds you... Despite all that, Ventarrón left Pompeya* and hid behind a star that his destiny led him to. Many years have passed, Ventarrón, along with the flashy suits and the wild delusions  you left behind in the gin mills* like a scourge of God. Now, sad and alone, past his prime, his defeats eating at his soul, the tough guy returned, looking for his reputation that's already taken by someone else. Now you’re not the same Ventarrón of those times. You’re an empty suit to a friend,*  and a nobody to the good-for-nothing.* And when you hear a swaggering, edgy tango you recall that past, the glamorous glories of Ventarrón.

Notes:

* Pedro Maffia: Check out Julio Nudler's bio of Maffia at TodoTango.com.

* gangster, made man: El malevo mentado del hampa. (Lunfardo) A malevo is a criminal or malefactor; mentado means noted, accepted, recognized; hampa denotes the criminal underworld. Hence, a man accepted and recognized among the criminal underworld.

* bawdy, brazen tangos: Canyengues quebradas del tango. Canyengue is an early, erotically-charged style of tango music and dance closely associated with the arrabal. A quebrada is a canyengue-inspired figure in which the woman bends backward at the waist, tosses her head back, and assumes a horizontal position. This was considered lewd or suggestive. Rarely practiced in social dancing today, the quebrada is sometimes seen in tango shows.

* Pompeya: A poor barrio to the south of Buenos Aires, often called the birthplace of tango. Memorialized in Homero Manzi’s lyrics for Barrio de tango (1943) and Sur (1949).

* gin mills: Cafetines, lower class bars.

* flashy suits and wild delusions: Guapezas y berretines (Lunf.)

* empty suit: cartón. María Rosa Braile points out that cartón is a shorthand way of saying cartón pintado ("painted cardboard") or ser pintado ("to be painted"), expressions that denote a person who isn't authentic, someone whose exterior appearance conceals a lack of inner substance. Hence, an "empty suit."

* a nobody to the good-for-nothing. A pobre cristo ("poor Christ") is a nobody, someone who has been betrayed and condemned, someone everybody makes fun of. A maula is a useless person, a good-for-nothing, a coward or a traitor.

Marol

Maui DJ Rose tells me this is one of her favorite songs. This version's for you, Rose!

Marol - Rodolfo Biagi/Alberto Amor (1946) 

Marol
Lyrics: Federico Silva (René Federico Silva Iraluz)
Music: Alberto Nery (Justino Idalberto Nery)
Tango Decoder version by Michael Krugman

The night was painted smoke black*
The wheels of a carriage left a track. 
With smoke black I’ll rub out my laments,  
With the murky black of ancient night.

Rundown barrio, narrow back street,
Gate and pavement, little puddle and streetlamp,
A street-corner Gardel, a flowered calico,
And in the soft night, wisteria and hollyhock.

Marol...Marol...Marol, you are of this barrio
Of this distant barrio of yesterdays and nostalgia
Marol, your hands and your voice have gone,
The fire in your eyes has died out,*
But my heart will not forget you so soon, Marol.

*Smoke black: Negro de humo (smoke black or carbon black) is a pigment produced by the incomplete combustion of wood or other materials, used in paints and printers ink. It is a recurring image in the lyric.
 
*The fire in your eyes has gone out: Se apagaron tus pupilas de carbón. Literally, “Your pupils of coal have been extinguished.”

[Original text follows]

Marol 
Letra: Federico Silva (René Federico Silva Iraluz) 
Música: Alberto Nery (Justino Idalberto Nery)

Con negro de humo se pintó la noche
Le pusieron filos las ruedas de un coche,
Con negro de humo borraré mis quejas
Con el negro turbio de la noche vieja.
 
Barrio trasnochado, callejuela angosta
Portón y empedrado, charquito y farol,
Un Gardel de esquina, un percal floreado
Y en la noche mansa, glicina y malvón.
 
Marol... Marol... Marol, tú eras de ese barrio
De ese barrio lejano del ayer y la nostalgia,
Marol se marcharon tus manos y tu voz,
Se apagaron tus pupilas de carbón
Pero mi emoción ya no te olvidará, Marol.