Several weeks ago a certain porteña messaged me, saying she would like to be friends on Facebook. Her FB identity was obviously pseudonymous: Milonguera Misteriosa, or words to that effect. Looking at the pics in her profile, I initially thought we might have met at one of the milongas I habitually attend in Buenos Aires, but she insisted that we have never danced together and she denied attending any of my usual haunts. She had simply read some of my posts on Tango Time Machine, and she wanted to chat. ¿Como no? It's always nice to have a little mystery in one's life, isn't it? We made friends on El Face.
The weeks go by, and our now-and-then FB conversations are getting quite interesting. It's obvious that she has danced a long time and is knowledgeable about tango dance, tango history, and tango lyrics. She gets no kick from champagne; she gets a kick out of obscure Lunfardisms.
A few days ago MM asked me if I'd like to read a story she wrote. Sure, I say, send it along. I open the attachment and read a little: it is about her quest to find the meaning of the lyrics of a 1930 song by Enrique Santos Discépolo, Justo el treinta y uno ("Right on the 31st"). Clearly this is a woman after my own heart....
However, it was plain from the start that to follow her story, I'd need to be familiar with the song, and I wasn't. So I grabbed the lyrics from Todotango.com and fired up the Tango Decoder. There were some difficult spots, and one curious expression (le regó el helecho), but what I didn't get on my own was amply revealed by Milonguera Misteriosa's story. She's the Decoder's decoder!
The song itself has a long history. It was recorded by Canaro with Charlo in the year it was composed (no surprise there, since "Canaro recorded everything"), and a month later by the Orquesta Típica Victor with Carlos Lafuente. Luis Díaz sang it with an orchestra led by Ricardo Luis Brignolo (composer of Siga el corso and Chiqué). Discépolo's lady, the songstress Tania, seems to have recorded it twice, once in '30 (after debuting it with Lucio Demare, according to some sources) and again in 1948 with Armando Lacava's orchestra. Julio Sosa sang it in a film and on record in 1953, and D'Arienzo reworked it in '58 with Mario Bustos.
As in certain other Discépolo songs, Justo el 31 contains an element of misogyny (see Tango Decoder's version of Esta noche me emborracho for another example), which I certainly deplore, but I don't think that supervenes the historical value of the song. It's got too much interesting language for it to be locked away in a drawer, and the narrative arc is quite clever once you know the hidden meaning. As Milonguera Misteriosa commented, "Realmente está escrito en clave!" (It really is written in code.)
So, without further ado, and with a grateful nod to Milonguera Misteriosa.... Justo el treinta y uno!
Justo el treinta y uno (1930)
("Right on the 31st")
Music by Enrique Santos Discépolo
Lyrics by Discépolo and Ray Rada
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Hace cinco días,
loco de contento
vivo en movimiento
como un carrusel...
Ella que pensaba
amurarme el uno,
justo el treinta y uno
yo la madrugué...
Me contó un vecino,
que la inglesa loca,
cuando vio la pieza
sin un alfiler,
se morfó la soga
de colgar la ropa
(que fue en el apuro,
lo que me olvidé...).
Si ahorca no me paga
las que yo pasé.
Era un mono loco
que encontré en un árbol
una noche de hambre
que me vio pasar.
Me tiró un coquito...
¡yo que soy chicato...
me ensarté al oscuro
y la llevé al bulín!...
Sé que entré a la pieza
y encendí la vela,
sé que me di vuelta
para verla bien...
Era tan fulera,
que la vi, di un grito,
lo demás fue un sueño...
¡Yo, me desmayé!
La aguanté de pena
casi cuatro meses,
entre la cachada
de todo el café...
Le tiraban nueces,
mientras me gritaban:
"¡Ahí va Sarrasani
con el chimpancé"!...
Gracias a que el "Zurdo",
que es tipo derecho,
le regó el helecho
cuando se iba a alzar;
y la redoblona
de amurarme el uno
¡justo el treinta y uno
se la fui a cortar!
|
It’s been five days,
mad with happiness,
I’m whirling about
like a carousel...
She was planning to
leave me the first of the month,*
but right on the 31st
I beat her to the punch...
A neighbor told me,
that the English slut,
when she saw the flat
without so much as a pin,
nearly hung herself
on the clothesline
(the one that I, in my rush
had left behind.)
If she hangs it doesn't pay me
for what I went through.
She was a crazy monkey
I found in a tree
on a night of hunger
that she saw me passing.
She threw me a coquito...*
I, who am nearsighted...
In the darkness, I screwed up,
and took her back to my place!...
I know that I went into the flat
and lit the candle,
I know that I turned
to get a good look at her...
She was so ugly that,
seeing her, I let out a cry,
the rest was a dream...
I fainted dead away!
I put up with her
almost four months,
despite the teasing
of everyone at the café...
They threw nuts at her,
while yelling at me:
“There goes Sarrasani*
with the chimpanzee!”
Thanks to Lefty,
who is an honest guy,
he "watered her fern"*
when she was about to clean the place out;*
and the double bet*
of leaving me on the first...
right on the thirty-first
I broke up with her!
|
* to leave me on the first: The verb amurar has a variety of meanings; here it clearly means "to abandon," possibly also "to rob." The inglesa had planned leave the narrator, and to take the contents of the flat with her.
* she threw me a coquito: A fruit resembling a miniature coconut; native to Chile. However, coquito is also a slang word for testicles. The verb tirar means "to throw," but it can also mean "to pull." Hence the line has a second possible reading.
* Sarrasani: A facetious reference to Hans Stosch, a clown whose stage name was GIovanni Sarrasani. He was the founder and director of a very successful circus based in Dresden, Germany, that boasted a huge collection of animals (hence the chimpanzee reference). After Stosch's death, the circus was directed by his son, Hans Jr,. and later by Hans Jr.'s widow Trude Stosch-Sarrasani. It was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden during WWII. Trude emigrated to Buenos Aires in 1948 and was befriended by Juan and Eva Perón. Under the Perón's patronage the Sarrasani Circus was reestablished as the National Circus of Argentina. I'm not sure whether the reference to Sarrasani was included in Discépolo's original lyric, or added later, when the circus had became known in Argentina.
* watered her fern...was about to clean the place out: le regó el helecho....se iba a alzar. The salacious botanical reference suggests that Lefty has betrayed the narrator with the inglesa, then betrayed the inglesa to the narrator. Irse a alzar is a slang expression meaning "to leave, taking everything."
* double bet: la redobla. A redobla is a compound bet in which the proceeds of a win on one bet are automatically staked on a second. The Englishwoman's first bet was that she would be able to make off with the contents of the flat; one may suppose that she planned to stake the loot on a subsequent venture. Perhaps she was thinking of moving in with Lefty? The song doesn't say.
OTHER TANGO DECODER VERSIONS OF SONGS BY ENRIQUE SANTOS DISCÉPOLO
• ALMA DE BANDEÓN
• CARILLÓN DE LA MERCED
• CONDENA
• ESTA NOCHE ME EMBORRACHO
• HUMILLACIÓN
• INFAMIA
• TORMENTA
• UNO
This song was a delight to translate. I am very pleased to be able to add it to my collection of positive images of women in tango! Since it was suggested to me by my new Facebook friend, Milonguera Misteriosa, I dedicate this version to her. Think of it as a kind of burnt offering.... 
