MILONGÓN
Music by Francisco Canaro
Lyrics by Homero Manzi
Selected Recordings:
Orquesta Típica Francisco Lomuto
w/ vocal by Jorge Omar 1939-02-28
Orquesta Típica Francisco Canaro 1938-06-20
Canaro's Quinteto Pirincho 1952-04-07
Below you'll find our subtitled video of MILONGÓN with lyrics in Spanish and English. Below the video, face-to-face text translation and explanatory notes.
[Tango Decoder thanks María Rosa Braile for her indispensable assistance in decoding this song.]
ABOUT THE LYRICIST:
Homero Manzi (1907-1951) was one of tango's greatest poets and lyricists. He was the author of many of the best known tangos that are heard today, including Abandono, Solamente Ella, Mañana Zarpa Un Barco, Ninguna, Recién, Sur, and many more. In 1930 he began a collaboration with composer Sebastian Piana (1903-1994) with the intention of reviving and modernizing the milonga, a genre of music and dance that had been very popular in Argentina in the 1870s, but had virtually disappeared. Together, Piana and Manzi composed the seminal modern milongas, Milonga Sentimental, Milonga de 900, and Milonga Triste. They also wrote several extraordinary tangos together, including El Pescante, De Barro, and Viejo Ciego, as well as one of the most beautiful valses ever written, Paisaje.
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Aquí viene el milongón surgiendo del ayer, lo trajo un bandoneón amargao de tener que llorar sin razón. Y vuelve del pasao, trayendo en el vaivén burlón de su compás el recuerdo de los tiempos que ya nunca volverán. El recuerdo de los tiempos cuando armaban las "eufemias" bailetines de academia con estilo de zanjón. Donde entraban los muchachos de prosapia corralera requintando los masseras al pisar en el salón. Cuando el tango se bailaba corazón a corazón. Aquí llega el milongón, contando en la canción su historia de arrabal que lloró el bandoneón y olvidó la ciudad. Por eso el retintín quebrao de su compás, picando en el violín como entonces marca el paso ligerito del botín. |
Here comes the milongón* appearing out of yesteryear, it was brought by a bandoneón bitter at being unjustly made to weep. And it returns from the past bringing in the mischievous swing of its rhythm the memory of times that will never return. The memory of the times when the "eufemias"* organized the humble dances of the academy* with the “zanjón” style.* Where the sons of the stockyard came* cocking their broad-brimmed hats* as they stepped into the dance hall. When the tango was danced heart to heart. Here comes the milongón, telling in song its arrabal tales that the bandoneón wept and the city forgot. That’s why the uneven tinkling of its beat, pecking on the violin, |
* milongón: A near precursor of the modern milonga, similarly derived from the African candombe. The milongón is said to have originated in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Francisco Canaro (b. 1888) was Uruguayan; the song's unique, driving rhythm presumably reflected his early musical experiences. The lyric (1938) announces the comeback of the forgotten dance, and the sheet music (see photo) prominently identifies Milongón as a "New Dance." The song was heard in the Argentine film of 1939, Turbión ("Torrent"), produced by Canaro.
* "eufemias". Who or what are the "eufamias"? First of all, it's a made up word that rhymes with academia. Manzi's intention is not known. However, the tango savant Luis Alposta, in a private communication, has suggested that the word may be a neologism consisting of "eu-" (good) and an abbreviated form of "fémina" (woman). "Good women."
Another possiblity: Lope de Rueda's play Eufemia (1567) tells the story of a virtuous young woman who falls victim of envy and defamation, and who is ultimately vindicated through her own bravery. (A classic of Spain's Golden Age of theater, the play was undoubtedly familiar to poet and screenwriter Homero Manzi, who had also been a university professor in literature and Spanish.) Since the profesoras of the dance academies (see note, following) have sometimes been maligned as covert prostitutes, it may be that Manzi's curious appellation is meant as a form of literary absolution. Whether they engaged in prostitution or not, the porfesoras made an indispensable contribution to the genesis of the dance, for which they are deservingly honored here.
* dances of the academy: bailetines de academia. Of afro-rioplatense origin, the first academias were formed in Buenos Aires and Montevideo in the middle of the nineteenth century for dancing candombe. As time went by, other dances were added. Tango is said to have developed there, in the melting pot of the academia, where candombe, mazurka, polka, waltz, milonga, and other popular dances met and merged.
The researchers Lamas and Binda (El Tango en la sociedad porteña 1880-1920, Buenos Aires 2008) make a convincing argument, supported by ample documentary evidence, that the academias of Buenos Aires and were not schools of dance at all, and the profesoras were not dance teachers. These terms were merely a cover for what were in fact clandestine dancing establishments. To wit: "Otras de las inexactitudes habituales, es considerar a estas academias como sitios de aprendizaje de baile, lo cual indica no tener la menor idea sobre el tema." (Trans.: Another habitual inaccuracy is to consider these academies as places for the learning of dance, which indicates not having the least idea of the subject.) According to them, the academias were clandestine dance halls designed to evade the various prohibitions, fees, and fines that were assessed on dancing, and which the poor could not pay. one of their citations, dating from 1880, describes an academia that was located in the closed upstairs room of a café, where the piano had a mattress strapped to it to dampen the sound so it couldn't be heard from the street! The profesoras were three or four long-suffering women who were paid to dance continuously with a crowd of men who also danced together in same-sex pairs when they couldn't get one of the ladies.
The word bailetín is a diminutive form of the word baile, dance, with a mildly derogatory or dismissive tone. We may suppose that a dance like that described above, with four women entertaining a large group of men in a clandestine location, is not only small and secretive, but also of an extremely humble character. In other words, a bailetín. (Revised 7/30/16.)
* "zanjón" style: A zanjón, an open ditch, ravine, or rivulet, was one of the characteristic physical features of the arrabal. The zanjón appears in numerous tango lyrics, including Manzi's Sur:
| La esquina del herrero, barro y pampa, Tu casa, tu vereda y el zanjón, Y un perfume de yuyos y de alfalfa Que me llena de nuevo el corazón. |
The blacksmith’s corner, the mud and vacant lots, your house, your street, the ravine, and a perfume of herbs and of alfalfa fills my heart anew. |
The identification of the dance style of the academies with the zanjón clearly marks it as something indigenous to the arrabal. To my knowledge, there never was a zanjón style per se. However, an early style of tango dating from this period is called the orillero style, the term denoting the style of dance practiced in the working-class barrios at the outer edges of the city. It may be that zanjón is a metrically correct substitution for a word with related meaning: orilla, edge, shore, river bank. Thus the style of the zanjón may be a poetic reference to the orillero style.
* sons of the stockyard: prosapia corralera. The Spanish means literally "stockyard ancestry."
* broad-brimmed hats: masseras. "Maxera" was a popular brand of men's hat or "homburg" (chambergo) with broad alas (wings) that could be turned up on one or both sides. The rioplatense Maxera was usually worn requintado, that is, cocked to one side and/or pulled low over the eyes. It is also mentioned in Manzi's Milonga de 900:
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Me gusta lo desparejo |
I like things uneven |
* boot. High-top military-style boots (taquitos militares) were de rigeuer among well-dressed young men of the arrabal during this period.
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