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"A good mink stole meant more to you than all my sincerity...." That about says it all.
Judas
Tango, 1942
Music: Carlos Marchisio
Lyrics: Carmelo Santiago
Recorded by Orquesta Típica Juan D'Arienzo with vocal by Héctor Mauré, 29 December 1942.
Video added, post retitled, translation revised and reformatted, 18 November 2016.
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Vida... Cargué mi cruz Mala... |
Life... Soul.... I bore my cross Wicked... |
Se va el tren (The train is leaving, foxtrot, 1942)
Lyrics: Carlos Viván
(photo, right)
Music: Antonio Bonavena
Listing on Tango.info
She swore to me with kisses that she loved me
That I was the love of her life,
Yet she deceived me with another.
How terrible and treacherous was Margo!
The romance that I used to dream of
Was shattered by her treachery
By the sight of the two of them leaving on a train
While I, suffering, sung this song.
The train is leaving
The train is leaving
And with it leaves my happiness.
Already I feel such pain
And with it leaves my love....
Se va el tren
se va el tren
y con el se va mi amor...
Me juró con besos que me amaba
que en la vida su amor sólo era yo
mas con otro ella me engañaba
fue fatal y pérfida Margo.
El romance que soñaba
se
disipó con su traición
y el ver que en un tren los dos marchaban
yo sufriendo cantaba esta canción.
Se va el tren
se va el tren
y con el se va mi bien.
ya se va que dolor
y con el se va mi amor
Adiós, arrabal (1930)
Music: Juan Bauer
Lyrics: Carlos Lenzi
Recorded by Angel D’Agostino, sung by Angel Vargas
Mañanita arrabalera
sin taitas por las veredas
ni pibas en el balcón.
Tus faroles apagados
y los guapos retobados
en tu viejo callejón.
Daybreak in the arrabal,*
not a wiseguy* on the sidewalks,
not a girl on the balconies.
Your street lamps are snuffed out,
and so are the obstinate guapos*
along your old alleyways.
Yo te canto envenenao
engrupido y amargao
hoy me separo de vos.
Adiós arrabal porteño
yo fui tu esclavo y tu dueño
y te doy mi último adiós.
I sing to you, stricken,
embittered and disillusioned,
for today I’m leaving you forever.
Goodbye, arrabal porteño,*
I was both your slave and your master,
but this is our last goodbye.
Madrecita, yo fui un reo
y en tus brazos hoy me veo
lleno de felicidad.
Dime mi buena viejita
dónde está mi noviecita
que no la puedo olvidar.
Dear mother, I’ve been a cad,
and in your arms today I find myself full of happiness.
Tell me, dear old girl,
Where’s that little sweetie of mine
Who I can’t forget?
Hoy ya vuelvo arrepentido
hecho más hombre y más bueno
a la vida del hogar.
Perdóname, que tu hijo
tiene un pensamiento fijo
y nadie lo hará cambiar.
Today I come home to my family,
Repentant, a better man and a better person.
But you must forgive me, for your son
harbors an indelible memory
that nobody will ever change.
El baile Rodríguez Peña
el Mocho y el Cachafaz
de la milonga porteña
que nunca más volverá...
Carnavales de mi vida
noches bravas y al final
los espiantes de las pibas
en aquel viejo arrabal.
The dances at Rodriguez Peña,*
El Mocho and Cachafaz*
The milonga porteña*
That I’ll never see again...
The time of my life at Carnaval,
Wild nights and in the end,
The girls giving us the slip,*
In the old arrabal.
*arrabal: Impoverished districts at the Buenos Aires city limits populated by immigrants living under harsh conditions. Heartland of tango.
*wiseguy: taita. Alternate meanings are bully, tough guy, punk, pimp.
*streetlamps...guapos: Tus faroles apagados y los guapos retobados en tu viejo callejón. This is an interesting poetic construction. Literally it means, "Your streetlights are snuffed out/extinguished/quiet, and (so are) the wild/obstinate/rebellious/saucy guapos of your old alleyways." The guapo was at one time an important, highly respected figure of the arrabal, a popularly acknowledged knifefighter, peacemaker, election fixer, and dandy living according to a strict code of honor. During the era referred to by the song (i.e., the late teens and early nineteen-twenties, the era of El Cachafáz and Rodriguez Peña) the original guapos (those that still survived) would have been old men with little or no day-to-day influence. The guapo had assumed a more mythical than practical status, and a man who styled himself a guapo or who was referred to as such was something else entirely. The word apagado, then, conveys multiple meanings: the streetlamp have been snuffed out because day is breaking, while the guapos are either quiet, because it's early morning, or extinct, because times have changed. (See Tango Decoder's version of "De puro guapo (1927)" for more on this theme.)
*porteño: Lit. “Of the port,” meaning native to Buenos Aires.
*dances at Rodriguez Peña: Probably refers to the legendary dancehall “San Martín” on Rodriguez Peña Street.
*El Mocho and Cachafaz: Two great forebears of modern tango dance.
*espiante: Escape or slipping out of one’s grasp. (Lunf.)
No vendrá (She won't come) 
Music & lyrics: Enrique Cadícamo
Esperaré otro rato y veré
por qué demoró...
Quiero creer
que este nuevo querer
es mi gran amor.
Por no estar tan solo y esperar
fumaré otro cigarrillo más.
Pero algo hay que me hace pensar
que no vendrá...
I'll wait a little while longer
and see what’s keeping her.
I want to believe that this new infatuation
is my great love.
I'll smoke one more cigarette
to keep me company while I wait.
But something is making me think,
"no vendrá"—she won't come.
No vendrá.
Bien lo sé que ella no vendrá.
Y aunque esperar ya no quiero
otro rato más la espero.
No vendrá... Pero igual pensando en ella estoy.
Ya por hoy no la veré
me lo dice la postrer
campanada de un reloj.
"No vendrá"—she won't come.
I know perfectly well, she won't come.
And though I'm sick of waiting
I wait for her a little longer still.
She won't come...but I'm thinking of her just the same.
The last chime of the clock says it all,
you’re not going to see her today!
Yo presentí que no iba a venir
cuando ayer se fue.
Triste quedó, suspirando sonrió,
y me dijo así:
"Tengo miedo de quererte... ¡amor!
¡Tengo miedo de sufrir por ti!"
Y ese temor, lo confieso, mi bien,
que era de los dos.
When she left yesterday
I had a feeling she wasn't going to come.
She seemed sad and she sighed, smiled,
And said this to me: I'm afraid to love you...my love!
I'm afraid of being hurt by you!
And I confess it, my darling,
we both had that same fear.
More Tango Decoder versions by Enrique Cadícamo:
Argañaraz • Compadrón • El cuarteador • Muñeca brava • Si la llegaran a ver • Tres esquinas • Tu llamado • Un dilema
(Updated with new title, 15 July 2014.)
Cotorrita del la suerte (1927)
Music by Alfredo De Franco
Lyrics by José De Grandis
How the obrerita—the little working girl—coughs at night,
Coughs and suffers the cruel premonition
That the candle of her life is dimming,
That her tender heart will never be free of this torment!
This frisky, high-spirited obrerita,
Who once brought such happiness to her little home,
Now endures long hours of agony
Knowing there’s no salvation from her malady.
A man passes, crying,
“Fortune-telling parrot!
Predicts life or death.
Want to try your luck?”
The obrerita resists, doubting and fearing
the rose-colored card
The parrot is picking out.
On reading it, her face brightens,
and trembling at the promised good fortune
she joyfully reads: A sweetheart, long life.
And she stifles the sob in her throat.
From then on her days slip by,
Anxiously awaiting her dearly beloved,
And on the afternoon of her sad death
She asks her mother: “Didn’t he come?”
A man passes, crying,
“Fortune-telling parrot!”
[Castellano]
¡Cómo tose la obrerita por las noches!
Tose y sufre por el cruel presentimiento
de su vida que se extingue y el tormento
no abandona su tierno corazón;
la obrerita juguetona, pizpireta,
la que diera a su casita la alegría,
la que vive largas horas de agonía
porque sabe que a su mal no hay salvación.
Pasa un hombre quien pregona:
"¡Cotorrita de la suerte!
Augura la vida o muerte.
¿Quiere su suerte probar?"
La obrerita se resiste
por la duda, temerosa,
y un papel de color rosa
la cotorra va a sacar.
Al leerlo su mirada se animaba
y temblando ante la dicha prometida
tan alegre leyó: Un novio, larga vida...
Y un sollozo en su garganta reprimió.
Desde entonces deslizáronse sus días
esperando al bien amado ansiosamente
y la tarde en que moría, tristemente,
preguntó a su mamita: ¿No llegó?