Subtitled Video #59A: NO AFLOJÉS ("Don't give up") D'Agostino-Vargas, 1940

NO AFLOJÉS (Don't give up)
Tango, composed 1934
Música: Pedro Maffia / Sebastián Piana
Letra: Mario Battistella

Recorded by Orquesta Típica Angel D'Agostino with vocal by Angel Vargas, 13 November 1940.

English-language version and subtitles by Michael Krugman for Tango Decoder.com.

English-language version and subtitles revised, notes added, 20 November 2016 with much assistance from María Rosa Braile. With thanks!

You may also like: NO AFLOJÉS as sung by Tita Merello in the 1949 film "Morir en su ley."

Vos, que fuiste de todos el más púa, batí con qué ganzúa piantaron tus hazañas... Por tu ausencia en las borracherías cambió la estantería el gusto de las cañas... Compadrito de aquellos tiempos, soy el tango hecho lamento, corro parejo con tu pintón, ¡sufro tu misma emoción! Vos fuiste el rey del bailongo en lo de Laura y la Vasca... ¡Habías que ver las churrascas cómo soñaban tras tuyo! ¡Alzaba cada murmullo tu taconear compadrón que era como flor de yuyo que embrujaba el corazón! Maula, el tiempo te basureó de asalto al revocar de asfalto las calles de tu barrio... No es que quiera tomarlo tan a pecho ¡pero es que no hay derecho que hoy talles tanto otario! Mozo lindo de aquel pasado, te saludo desconsolado, porque en tu reino sentimental vuelco la esquina final.

You who were the sharpest of all, tell me with what skeleton key,* they stopped your great deeds.... When you disappeared from the gin mills the booze on the shelves changed its taste... Swaggering wiseguy of those bygone times,* I am the tango turned mournful, I’m running neck and neck with you in looks, I feel the same way as you! You were the king of the dance at Lo de Laura y La Vasca... * You had to to see those beautiful young girls how they used to dream of you! Each murmur extolled your showoff heel-tapping* that was like a flowering herb that bewitched their hearts. Loser, time suddenly insulted you by paving with asphalt the streets* of your barrio... It’s not that I’d want you to take it to heart, But it’s not right that now you're playing such a fool! Beautiful boy of times past, I salute you, heartbroken, because I’m turning the final corner of your romantic reign.

 NOTES:

* Tell me with what skeleton key: The verb batir is used in the Lunfardo imperative voice, batí, meaning, "tell me." Ganzúa is a skeleton key, or in underworld slang a piece of bent wire thieves used to pick locks.

* Swaggering wiseguy: compadrito. The compadrito was a kind of half-baked, early 20th-century imitation of the historically prior guapo. "[The compadrito was] distinguished by gratuitous provocation, false pride, and the claim to great deeds which were not his own." (Blas Raúl Gallo, cited in El Tango by Horacio Salas, Editorial Planeta Argentina, 1986) However, the compadrito, with his provocative attitude and his highly stylized manner of gesture and movement, is said to have made an important contribution to the development of tango dance and style.

* Lo de Laura y La Vasca: Lo de Laura was an early tango dance hall hosted by "la Morocha" Laura Montserrat in the last years of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century at Paraguay 2512. (It was still open in 1915; no one is quite sure when it finally closed its doors.) Laura's was luxurious, had a wealthy clientele—which included many jockeys and other figures of the horse-racing community—and often featured the legendary pianist "El Negro" Rosendo Medizábal (1868-1913), composer of El entrerriano, believed to be the oldest tango in the modern repertoire. María La Vasca was the proprietress a smaller, competing establishment.

* showoff heel-tapping: taconear compadrón. In standard Spanish, the verb taconear means to click, stomp, or stamp, or to tap or click one's heels, esp. in dancing. In popular speech, it can mean a bold or arrogant way of walking. The noun compadrón, Lunfardo for a showoff or a loudmouth, is here employed as an adjective. Hence taconear compadrón means "showoff heel-tapping."

* paving the cobblestones: The verb revocar in this context means to cover over with a mixture of cal cemento (lime cement) and water. It's not in any dictionary that I could find, but several porteños of my acquaintance agree on this.

Comments

[Leo BEKER]

Sorry, but to me "batí con que ganzúa

piantaron tus hazañas" should be translated rather as "tell us with what kind of skeleton key somebody stole your stunts"

And "Maula el tiempo te basureó de asalto

al revocar de asfalto

las calles de tu barrio...
"

"The coward passing of time humiliated you with a sucker punch while covering with asphalt the streets of your neighborhood."

[Leo BEKER]

Sorry, but to me "batí con que ganzúa

piantaron tus hazañas" should be translated rather as "tell us with what kind of skeleton key somebody stole your stunts"

And "Maula el tiempo te basureó de asalto

al revocar de asfalto

las calles de tu barrio...
"

"The coward passing of time humiliated you with a sucker punch in covering with asphalt the streets of your neighborhood."

[Michael]

That's a very interesting interpretation, Leo! What does "tell us with what kind of skeleton key somebody stole your stunts" mean, Leo? I don't understand what it means....