Todotango.com has recently added sheet music for Osvaldo Donato and Sandalio Gómez's much-loved milonga, Sacale punta, recorded by Edgardo Donato's orchestra in 1938. Thank you, todotango! We salute your indispensable service to the tango community!
However, todotango's sheet music seems to be a somewhat different edition from the one I found in the library at AGADU (Uruguayan Author's Association). It has a slick photo of singer Enrique Carbel on the cover, and it alludes to Donato's earlier recording of the song, fairly certain evidence that it's a later edition. Perhaps Carbel sang the song on the radio; I see no evidence of a recording by him. [Continued below our fundraising appeal...]
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A DIFFERENT SET OF LYRICS
The first two stanzas of the lyrics here the same as the AGADU version. But in the first line of the third, unsung stanza, the suggestive and arguably lewd phrase meta y ponga ("in and out") has been expunged. In Lunfardo (rioplatense underworld slang) meta y ponga refers to something that keeps on repeating again and again, and it may also be taken as a sexual reference, similar to "the old in-out" in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."
Here are the two versions of the line:
AGADU: Nada hay que hacer al meta y ponga del bandoneón. ("There's nothing to be done to the in and out of the bandoneón.")
Todotango: Nada hay que hacer cuando rezonga el bandoneón. ("There's nothing to be done when the bandoneón growls/grumbles/murmurs.")
Why the difference in versions? One possibility is that the publisher of the later edition (or someone else) objected to the expression meta y ponga, either because of its obscure meaning or because of its possible suggestiveness. Another is that Carbel, or someone else, felt that the expression meta y ponga did not scan well or was too difficult to sing.
Whatever the reason for it, the change in the lyrics does nothing to improve the song. In the todotango/Carbel version, the verb rezonga (meaning "to mutter, murmur, growl, or grumble") is used in both the first and third stanzas, a redundancy that dilutes the impact of the original poem. The AGADU version, the original third stanza with its meta y ponga is more consistent with the ribald, vernacular tone of the first two. We'll stick with our AGADU version of Sacale punta, and our existing English-language versions in text and in subtitled video:
Sacale punta lyrics in original Spanish with Tango Decoder's English-language version (text only)
Sacale punta subtitled video by Tango Decoder.
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