Tango Time Machine — Tango Decoder

Estampa federal: love in a time of tyranny

This stately Di Sarli vals sung by Alberto Podestá tells a rather grim story. Explanatory notes follow the English version. 

Estampa federal*
Waltz
Music: Pedro Maffia / Sebastián Piana
Lyric: Cátulo Castillo

Composer, bandleader, and teacher Pedro Maffia was one of the most important bandoneonistas in the history of tango. His mastery of technique and phrasing, widely acknowledged as a result of his performances and recordings with the Julio De Caro Sextet, set a new standard and style for players of the instrument. He is also the composer of several seminal tangos, including Abondono, Amurado, Te Aconsejo Que Me Olvides, and Ventarrón, as well as Estampa Federal.

Se enredan en la noche tus hondas pupilas, tus labios son un broche teñido de lila. Tus sueños en los míos, fríos, fríos. Murmullo de tu miedo, quedo, quedo. Qué blancas tus palabras qué oscura tu angustia, la flor de tu esperanza qué triste, qué mustia. Se anuda en esta huida tu vida y mi vida. Amada, en la alborada, me llevo tu adiós. Ríe entre las sombras Doña Encarnación. Moños federales en tu peinetón. Bailan en la fiesta de los mazorqueros, ruedan las gavotas, giran los lanceros. Y en la algarabía de la fiesta roja, junto a tu pupila bebo la congoja de mi desazón.

Your deep, black pupils are mixed with the night, your lips are a brooch tinged with lilac.*  Your dreams in mine, cold, indifferent. The whisper of your fear, soft, soft. How bright your words, how dark your anxiety. The bloom of your hope, how sad, how withered. Your life and mine united in this flight.* Beloved, at daybreak, I receive your farewell. Doña Encarnación*  laughs in the shadows. The federalist ribbons  in your peinetón* dance at the fiesta  of the mazorqueros,*  the gavottes whirl,  the lanceros turn.* And amid the hullabaloo  of this red-draped fiesta,*  along with your pupil, I drink in the heartbreak of my disgust.

Notes 

* Estampa Federal: This historical "sketch" or "impression" (estampa) refers to the struggle between the federales, who advocated a loose confederation of states without centralized leadership, and the unitarios, who advocated a unified Argentina with Buenos Aires as its center. The country was led for nearly twenty years by federale chief General Juan Manuel de Rosas, who ruled the country with an iron fist. Rosas demanded fierce, demonstrative loyalty from every citizen, and conducted a reign of terror to intimidate and in many cases exterminate the opposition. 

*lilac: Blood red was the omnipresent symbol of the Rosas regime. Citizens were compelled to wear certain articles of red clothing at all times--waistcoats and hatbands for men, for example. Wearing blue, the color of the unitarios, was not only forbidden, but punishable by death. Lilac is purple in color, that is, a mixture of red and blue. The image of lips tinged with lilac suggests conflicting sympathies. 

*flight: Many unitario families were dispossessed and forced into exile in Brazil or Uruguay. In the first verse, two lovers plan to flee the repressive regime together, but the girl changes her mind at the last minute ("I receive your farewell"). In the second verse, they both rejoin rosista society, as reflected in their attendance at the red-draped fiesta of the mazorqueros, and the narrator bitterly watches his beloved, her hair decorated with red ribbons, dancing gavottes and lanceros with the paramilitary officers. 

*Doña Encarnación: Doña Encarnación Ezcurra (portrait, above, right) was the wife of General Rosas and also the brains behind the Mazorca, a paramilitary death squad that conducted the reign of terror during her husband's regime. Note the slogans inscribed on the portrait: "Long Live the Federales. Federation or Death. Death to the Unitarios." 

*federalist ribbons in your peinetón: The peinetón was an outsized decorative comb that upper-class ladies of the rosista period wore in their hair. They also wore compulsory red hair-ribbons (moños federales) to demonstrate allegiance to the federalist cause. In the portrait above, Doña Encarnación sets the style for the women of nation.

*mazorqueros: Members of the Mazorca. 

*gavottes, lanceros: Popular dances of the era.

*red-draped fiesta: The original text merely says "fiesta roja," literally, a red party, but Rosas required that the venue of any official function be decorated with gobs of red bunting. The mazorqueros would certainly have observed this rule, and the image also underscores the blood-thirsty character of their actions.

 

Como el hornero: a hopeful tango

Here's an odd bird: a hopeful tango, "Como el hornero." Appearing in early 1944, with radio censorship in full sway, the song has not a hint of the forbidden Lunfardo slang. And despite a healthy shot of tango melancholia, there's a ray of hope at the end. However, that last, hopeful verse—a kind of Hollywood ending—isn't sung in any of the recorded versions I know, neither D'Agostino w/ Vargas, Biagi w/Amor, nor Laurenz w/Podestá. That's tango for ya.

About the bird of the title: "Rufous Hornero (Furnarius rufus) is a medium-sized ovenbird in the family Furnariidae. It occurs in eastern South America, and is the national bird in Argentina and Uruguay....The species is monogamous and the pair bond is long term, sometimes for life. The nest of the species is typical for the genus, a large thick clay "oven" placed on a tree, or man made structures such as fenceposts, telephone poles or buildings." (text and pic from Wikipedia) 

For this post, I'll trying alternating the Spanish and English on each stanza. See what you think. (Typepad doesn't offer side-by-side, two-column layouts as far as I can tell, so I'm still searching for the right format.) Full lyrics from TodoTango.com plus Tango Decoder's English version after the bump.

Muñeca Brava: femme fatale

Note: An improved, updated version of this post is here.

Here's another well-known tango, Muñeca Brava, from Luis Visca and Enrique Cadícamo (authors of Compadrón, featured in my last post). Carlos Gardel recorded it in 1929 with the original Lunfardo-rich lyrics intact. A bowdlerized, de-Lunfardized version was recorded by Alberto Castillo with Ricardo Tanturi's orchestra (1942), and subsequent versions seem to follow the Castillo pattern. An exception is Lalo Martel's 1959 version with De Angelis, which is fairly faithful to the original.  

Tango Decoder's English version of Muñeca Brava is below, followed by my notes.

Other Tango Decoder versions by Enrique Cadícamo:
Argañaraz  •  Compadrón  •  El cuarteador  •  No vendrá  •  Si la llegaran a ver  •  Tres esquinas  •  Tu llamado  •  Un dilema

 

Muñeca brava*
(Femme Fatale)
Tango
1929
Music: Luis Visca
Lyric: Enrique Cadícamo

Hey* madame who parlez-vous français*
And spends money hand over fist,*
Who drinks* her cocktails well iced
And keeps a gigolo in high style....
You’re a sweet biscuit,
Eyelashes well curled....
Muñeca Brava, femme fatale,
Highly prized.
You’re from the Trianon...
The Club Trianon in the Villa Crespo,*
Foxy milonguera
Dangerous toy....

You’ve got a loverboy to pleasure you
And twenty good years to brag about.*
Your purse is full enough
To gamble it away North and South.
They all call you Muñeca Brava,
Because you get the chumps* all dizzy, and that’s no lie,
To me you’ll always be the gal who didn’t know
How to preserve even a speck* of innocence.*

See the dream that eluded you.
Take a good look at your imposing silhouette.
And if the tears ever manage to catch up with you
Give pain the slip, and laugh it off....
Swill* champagne as life slips away,
Muñeca Brava, flower of sin,
When you reach the end of your career
Then you’ll see your primroses wilt.

*Muñeca Brava: Muñeca (Lunf.) denotes an attractive young woman (literally “doll”). Brava (Lunf.) denotes a sexually provocative woman. Hence Muñeca Brava is more or less equivalent to the French/English femme fatale.

*Che: Interjection used to get someone's attention. "Che, pibe, traeme un café."

*madame who parlez-vous français: The original is madam que parlás en francés. Parlás is from the French verb parler, to speak, but with the Spanish inflection -ás. The narrator/singer is imitating the sound of French. French women were highly prized as prostitutes, mistresses, singers, etc., and many who were not French assumed Frenchified identities.

*spends money hand over fist: tirás ventolín a dos manos, literally, “you throw money (ventolín, Lunf.) with both hands.”

*drinks her cocktails well iced: escabiás copetín bien frapé. Escabiás, from escabiar (Lunf.), verb of Italian origin, means to drink alcoholic beverages, usually with the intention to get drunk. Frapé from the French, frappé, iced.

*Trianon...Trianon in Villa Crespo: A double-entendre referring to the Trianon palace at Versaille and, in thinly veiled form, the Petit Trianon, a notorious brothel located on Pichincha Street, a red-light district in Rosario.

*twenty good years to brag about: veinte abriles que son diqueros. Abriles (Lunf.) are years (literally, Aprils) and a diquero (Lunf.) is a show-off, one who brags.

*chumps: giles are chumps or marks (Lunf.)

*sin grupo: grupo (Lunf.) is a deception or a lie.

*speck: un cacho (Lunf.), a speck or fragment. 

*innocence: amor y juventud, literally, love and youth.

*swill: Meta (Lunf.)

[Castellano]

Che madam que parlás en francés
y tirás ventolín a dos manos,
que escabiás copetín bien frapé
y tenés gigoló bién bacán...
Sos un biscuit
de pestañas muy arqueadas...
Muñeca brava
bien cotizada.
Sos del Trianón...
del Trianón de Villa Crespo...
Milonguerita,
juguete de ocasión...

Tenés un camba* que te hacen gustos
y veinte abriles que son diqueros,
y muy repleto tu monedero
pa´ patinarlo de Norte a Sud...
Te baten todos Muñeca Brava
porque a los giles mareás sin grupo,
pa´ mi sos siempre la que no supo
guardar un cacho de amor y juventud.

Campaneá la ilusión que se va
y embrocá tu silueta de rango,
y si el llanto te viene a buscar
escurrí tu dolor y reí...
Meta champán que la vida se te escapa,
Muñeca Brava, flor de pecado...
Cuando llegués
al final de tu carrera,
tus primaveras
verás languidecer

 

Subtitled Video #19: COMPADRÓN, a papier-mâché wiseguy

If you dance tango, you almost certainly know this song. To me, it always had an upbeat, celebratory sound that made me happy—and it still does. I guessed that "compadrón" was some sort of laudatory appellation, like calling someone Big Guy, or the equivalent. Finally I ran the lyrics through the Tango Decoder, and what came out is a whole different story. Our English version (below) tells the tale.

The song has quite a history, too. Its composer, Luis Visca, also wrote "Muñeca Brava" and he preceded Rodolfo Biagi at the piano in D'Arienzo's orchestra. Its lyricist, noted poet and novelist Enrique Cadícamo (right) was author of over five hundred tango lyrics including "Muñeca Brava," "Nunca Tuvo Novio," "Los Mareados," and "Madame Ivonne." The song was recorded by the orchestras of D'Arienzo, De Angelis, Canaro, and Fresedo, and it was sung by Carlos Gardel, Carlos Dante, and Héctor Mauré, among others. 

Other Tango Decoder versions by Enrique Cadícamo:
Argañaraz  • Muñeca brava  •  El cuarteador  •  No vendrá  •  Si la llegaran a ver  •  Tres esquinas  •  Tu llamado  •  Un dilema

Our subtitled video of COMADRÓN is below. Scroll down for full text in Spanish and English.

Compadrón*
Tango
1927
Music: Luis Visca
Lyric: Enrique Cadícamo
Tango Decoder version Copyright © 2013

Good-for-nothing wiseguy,*
if Johnny Badass* catches up with you
it'll be a shame* what happens to you.
You’re less than a speck of spattered mud*
To the local boys.
You count for nothing
In their back-alley aristocracy.*

Your little circle of buddies 
have already abandoned you, no doubt,
And you know why!
Compadrón, parasitic small-time hood,
And that’s what your friends call you,
To me, though it might hurt when I say it, you’re
just an ignorant lug, a big shot’s soiled handkerchief.*

When you get to be old and alone [Spoken: Fool!*] 
And you get a load of yourself in the mirror, [Spoken: No account!*] 
You will see that you’ve achieved nothing...
Your shattered illusions
Will crumble before your eyes.
In the gamble of life

You’re a point without a trump
on the discarded suit.
The world’s a boxing ring
And you’re a feeble right hook*
in words and in love.
Though you talk a lot of shit
To puff yourself up, 
Under my breath I say to myself, 
“May God help you,
My papier-mâché wiseguy!”

*compadrón: In Lunfardo, the underworld slang of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, a compadrón is a fool, a conceited person, a braggart, a loudmouth, a show-off, or all of the above. 

*good-for-nothing wiseguy: The original is, compadrito a la violeta. A compadrito (Lunfardo) is a typical character of the barrio, a prideful, quarrelsome person, highly affected in his manner of dress and action. A la violeta (Ar. slang) means vacant, unoccupied, idle, unemployed.

*Johnny Badass: Juan Malevo. A malevo is a tough-guy, a criminal, an offender, a “badass.” “Juan Malevo” is the personification of a barrio crime boss.

*not even a speck of mud on their shoe: No tenés siquiera un cacho de ese barro chapaleado por los mozos del lugar. Even my Argentine friends scratched their heads when I asked about this expression! Un cacho (Lunf.) is a small speck or fragment. Barro (Lunf.) is mud. Chapaleado means splashed or sloshed, from the verb chapalear. "You’re not even a speck of splattered mud" seems like a good guess. It has the virtue of being congruent with the line that follows.

*count for nothing their back-alley aristocracy: El escudo de los guapos no te cuenta entre sus gules. The image is of a coat of arms (escudo) displaying the heraldic color red (gules). The compadrón is not represented in the "heraldry" of the guapos (a complex term with many shades of meaning, but in this context, "local tough guys" is close enough).

*a big shot’s soiled handkerchief: retazo de bacán. A bacán is a big shot, a high roller, a guy who has a kept woman. A retazo is a remnant of cloth, a snippet, bits and pieces of something. The soiled hankerchief was my idea.

*shame: (Lunf.) calor.

*parasitic small-time hood: Prontuariado de vivillo. Prontuariado denotes a known offender, someone with a record of prior arrests (prontuario). A vivillo is an opportunist or self-serving person; a scrounger, a parasite.

*Colo! (Vesra) loco. In Vesra slang, the letters of a word are transposed to disguise its meaning.

*Gato! (Lunf.) a person of little worth.

*Biabazo: Lunf. right hook.

Compadrito a la violeta,
si te viera Juan Malevo
qué calor te haría pasar.
No tenés siquiera un cacho
de ese barro chapaleado
por los mozos del lugar.
El escudo de los guapos
no te cuenta entre sus gules
por razones de valer.
Tus ribetes de compadre
te engrupieron, no lo dudes.
¡Ya sabrás por qué!

Compadrón
prontuariado de vivillo
entre los amigotes que te siguen,
sos pa' mí, aunque te duela,
compadre sin escuela, retazo de bacán.
Compadrón,
cuando quedes viejo y solo (¡Colo!)
y remanyes tu retrato (¡Gato!),
notarás que nada has hecho...
Tu berretín deshecho
verás desmoronar.

En la timba de la vida
sos un punto sin arrastre
sobre el naipe salidor,
y en la cancha de este mundo
sos un débil pa'l biabazo,
el chamuyo y el amor.
Aunque busques en tu verba
pintorescos contraflores
pa' munirte de cachet,
yo me digo a la sordina
¡Dios te ayude, compadrito
de papel maché!

El Carillón De La Merced

"Carillón de la Merced," in the 1931 version by the Típica Victor, starts with church bells that strongly evoke a wedding, though isn't about a wedding at all. It's about a rather unusual pilgrimage, romantic rather than religious, to the basilica of Santiago de la Merced in Chile. It was composed by the great Enrique Santos Discépolo (Cambalache) and written by him and Alfredo Le Pera. The lyrics are a bit obscure, but here's what I was able to make of it:

Carillón de la Merced 
Music: Enrique Discépolo 
Lyrics: Enrique Discépolo, Alfredo Le Pera

I don’t even know how I found my way to you,
Church-bells of Santiago de la Merced*
with your immutable voice,
the voice of my wanderings,
the voice of an incorrigible traveler
who wants to forget.

Milagro peregrino
--pilgrim’s miracle--
drenched with tears.
Your singing, like me,
tires of living,
swings this way and that,
without finding a place to die...

You fathomed the secret
of my heart,
for hearing your sound
I unwittingly named "her."
So now you know
who she was,
the one who left me,
the one I seek, weeping,
the one I’ll never find!

My old secret,
I leave it with you, Carillón.
It keeps on tolling,
and I, turning to go,
take your emotion
as a goodbye.

*The Basilica de la Merced is a basilica located in Santiago, Chile. It was founded by the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy and constructed in 1795. It is a Chilean National Monument. It is Neo-Renaissance in architecture and has a small museum with religious objects and art, including a collection of pieces from Easter Island. The collection includes a rongorongo tablet, one of 29 left in the world.

Carillón de la Merced

Yo no sé por qué extraña
razón te encontré,
Carillón de Santiago
que está en la Merced,
con tu voz inmutable,
la voz de mi andar,
de viajero incurable
que quiere olvidar.

Milagro peregrino
que un llanto combinó.
Tu canto, como yo,
se cansa de vivir
y rueda sin saber
dónde morir...

Penetraste el secreto
de mi corazón,
porque oyendo tu son
la nombré sin querer.
Y es así como hoy sabes
quién era y quién fue,
¡la que busco llorando
y... que no encontraré!

Mi vieja confidencia
te dejo, Carillón.
Se queda en un tañir,
y al volver a partir
me llevo tu emoción
como un adiós.

De puro guapo (1935)

De Puro Guapo- Laurenz/Podestá 

De Puro Guapo* 
Music: Pedro Laurenz
Lyrics: Manuel Meaños

Amidst cortes and quebradas*
I murmured sweetly in your ear
All my flowery words of love. 
The way you smiled
Showed all your coquettishness
And I, my manliness was vanquished...
I, who always came out on top.

To win your love
I’m ready to risk my life
On the hand that I’ve drawn....
It’s not the first hand
On which I bet everything I had...
And when it comes to winning or losing
--I’m not one to wimp out--
There’s always the dagger, a steady hand,
Courage, bravura,
To keep my self respect.

What I want, I take, 
And that by force and bravery.
It’s enough that I have my rag in one hand*
And a dagger in the other...
If my past deeds aren’t enough,
I’ll put my courage to the test.
Nobody gets the better of me
Where your love is at stake.

*De Puro Guapo: This Argentine slang expression denotes a person who meets adversity with boldness and bravery. The song was recorded by Pedro Laurenz as well as Canaro, D'Arienzo, Troilo, and others. This is not to be confused with an earlier song (1927) by the same title with a similar theme, but much more violent and misogynistic. The earlier song was written by Rafael Iriarte with lyrics by Juan Carlos Fernández Díaz, and recorded by Gardel, Fresedo, Canaro (he recorded both songs) and others.

*Cortes and quebradas: Two iconic movements of early tango.

*rag in one hand: The classic gaucho dueling technique involved wrapping a poncho around one hand and forearm to act as a shield against dagger thrusts. I'm guessing that the urban duellist of later years, who was not a gaucho and no longer wore a poncho, simply wrapped a towel or rag (trapo) around his hand for the same reason. 

[En castellano]

Entre cortes y quebradas,
suave rezongué en tu oído
todo mi verbo florido
que te dijo mi querer.
Vos mostraste en tu sonrisa
toda tu coquetería,
y yo, vencida mi hombría...
Yo que siempre supe vencer.

Pa' conseguir tu cariño
quiero jugarme la vida
al naipe que me ha gustado...
No es la primera partida 
en que mi resto he jugado...
Y si al final copo y gano,
—taura soy en la postura—
hay un facón, brava mano,
coraje y bravura
pa' hacerme valer.

Lo que yo quiero lo tengo,
y eso por taura y por guapo...
Basta que en un brazo el trapo
tenga y en otro el facón...
Si no bastan mis hazañas
pongo mi coraje a prueba.
¡Nadie ventaja me lleva
cuando está en juego tu amor!

What does it all mean? (Moneda de cobre, 1942)

In this blog I explore the lyrics of songs from the Golden Age of tango. Tango lyrics were often written by some of the best poets of Argentina and Uruguay. Many exhibit notable literary qualities. Some rise to the level of real poetry. They also shed light on the history and culture of tango.

Personally, I've found that knowing what the lyrics mean enhances my appreciation and enjoyment of tango music and dance. Has it made me a better dancer? Perhaps. It certainly has added another dimension of feeling to my dance. For example, the music of MONEDA DE COBRE (see below) touched my heart on first hearing, long before I listened closely to the lyrics. Now that I know what the lyrics mean, the song is even more meaningful to me. The tragic theme affects me emotionally, stirring me to dance with greater passion. Isn't that what it's all about?

As a native speaker of English, I've found that interpreting tango lyrics is an enjoyable way to build my Spanish-language vocabulary and reading skills. In that sense, these versions are works in progress, reflecting my growing language ability. I am sure I'll make plenty of mistakes. Feel free to correct me if you think I've gone off the track. You're welcome to post your own versions, too. 

There's more to say by way of introduction to the blog, but I think I'll just go ahead and post my Tango Decoder version of the tango MONEDA DE COBRE. There'll be more musings on tango and life in forthcoming entries.

Moneda de Cobre (Copper Coin) 1942
Music: Carlos Viván
Lyric: Horacio Sanguinetti
English-language translation Copyright © 2014 by Michael Krugman.

Your father was blond, a drunk, a hoodlum,
Your mother was black with broad pink lips.*
You were born mulata--mixed--with blue eyes
and wavy, coal-black hair.
You grew up in the mire of a poor neighborhood,
turned twenty in a cabaret,
And today they call you Moneda de Cobre, Copper Coin,
Old and sad and worth very little.

Moneda de cobre, I know you were beautiful back then;
With your pink wings,*
Like a butterfly, I saw you fly,
And then I saw you fall...
Moneda de fango*—tarnished coin,
How well you used to dance the tango!
I know that you were beautiful back then,
Like a bronze queen,
There in the "Folies Bergere."

[That sad barrio full of mud and pain
Now vanished, along with your youth...
Twenty years have passed, my dear,
Your parents, gone, the streetlamps, gone.
Perhaps you got lost out on the corner,
Looking for the house where you were born;
Keep looking, don't stop, don't show the pain...
Don't cry, mulata, what good would it do?]

[Tango Decoder version Copyright © 2013, Michael Krugman]

Notes:

The lyrics given here are those of the Ricardo Tanturi recording of 1942 (Alberto Castillo singing). The military dictatorship that came to power in 1943 exercised censorship over tango lyrics. The 1943 recording of the song (by Lucio Demare's orchestra with Raul Berón) featured sanitized lyrics. The father is described as buen mozo (good-looking) instead of drunk, and the mother is morena (brunette) instead of black. The forbidden word cabaret was expunged, replaced by the placeholder phrase, "total, para qué" (for what it's worth, what's the use, etc). The censorship of tango lyrics was lifted in 1949 by Juan Perón after a meeting with a group of widely admired tango lyricists including Enrique Santos Discépolo, Homero Manzi, and others. 

* Broad pink lips: The original is labios malvón. Malvón is geranium, a flower with broad, pink petals, hence the mother is a black woman with broad, pink lips. Malvón appears in many tango lyrics. There is even a tango called just that, MALVÓN, recorded by Ricardo Tanturi in 1943. Maybe we'll see an English-language version of that in a future post.

* Pink wings: Presumably a costume that the protagonist wore in a show at the "Folies Bergere" cabaret.

* Moneda de fango: Fango means mud--an ever-present reality of the Buenos Aires slums--but it also has the implication of scandal or disgrace, so I translated it as "tarnished," which fits the context nicely. Fango is one of the few words that rhyme with tango, so it shows up a lot in tango lyrics. Rango (rank, status, or stature) is another. CANCIÓN DE RANGO employs all three.

[Spanish original follows]

Tu padre era rubio, borracho y malevo,
tu madre era negra con labios malvón.
Mulata naciste con ojos de cielo
y mota en el pelo de negro carbón.
Creciste entre el lodo de un barrio muy pobre,
cumpliste veinte años en un cabaret.
Y ahora te llaman moneda de cobre
porque vieja y triste muy poco valés.

Moneda de cobre,
yo sé que ayer fuiste hermosa;
yo con tus alas de rosa
te vi volar mariposa
y después te vi caer...
Moneda de fango,
¡Qué bien bailabas el tango!...
Yo sé que ayer fuiste hermosa,
como una reina de bronce,
allá en el "Folies Berger."

[Aquel barrio triste de barro y de latas
igual que tu vida desapareció...
Pasaron veinte años, querida mulata,
no existen tus padres, no existe el farol.
Quizás en la esquina te quedes perdida
buscando la casa que te vio nacer;
seguí, no te pares, no muestres la herida...
No llores mulata, total, ¡para qué!]

 [Tango Decoder's subtitled bilingual video of MONEDA DE COBRE on YouTube] 

 

Tango and Cinema

Tango and film are contemporaneous. They were born and grew up together. There is no silent tango, but there is early, wordless tango, in which music and dance are the sole means of expression. The year 1903 is the primordial moment in the history of both forms: Ángel Villoldo composes El Choclo, and Edwin S. Porter lenses the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery.

Alma de Bohemio - Roberto Firpo 

 In the theaters of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, tango and film merge. While the silent images unfold on the screen in black and white, orchestras play tangos from the loge or the pit. Ojos Negros by Vicente Greco mirrors the gloom of Nosferatu, while Robert Firpo's Alma de Bohemio sets the mood for the feverish chariot action of Ben-Hur. The spectators are cinephiles who come to see films with tango accompaniment or music lovers who come to hear tango with a film backdrop. The latter bunch follows the music. When Julio de Caro and his band, or Ángel D'Agostino and his, or Vardaro and Pugliese with their sextet change venues, the fans go with them. They don't care what film is playing; they just want to hear their favorite orchestra.

 Beginning in 1925 there are attempts to synchronize recorded music with motion pictures. At the point in the screenplay where a singer is supposed to perform a tango, the real thing is played on a Gramophone. The rest of the scenes pass in silence. During showings of Adiós, Argentina, for example, silence reigns until the moment that Libertad Lamarque sings the title song. For the rest of the show, not a peep.

Some years later there’s an attempt to merge sound and vision for the length of a whole film. This approach is a total bust: when the film breaks, as happens all the time, the voice and music keep going. The film is spliced together and they get it rolling again, but there's no way to catch up with the runaway soundtrack. The audience has to endure this incoherence for the remainder of the show.

[The Vitaphone sound film system (1926). Engineer E. B. Craft (l.) holds the phonograph record that carries the sound.]

 The last years of the decade see the invention of the Movietone sound system, which puts an optical soundtrack on the same reel as the picture. Some filmmakers, Chaplin among them, think the new technology signals the death of cinematic art; they cling to the silent form. They are soon proven wrong.

Carlos Gardel is one of the first to foresee that sound will triumph and that the cinema will be the popular art of the century. When the first sound cameras arrive in Argentina, he makes ten short films of tangos framed by brief dialogues. Appearing with Gardel—singing, playing, acting—are his guitarists Aguilar, Barbieri y Riverol, bandleader Francisco Canaro, the poet and lyricist Enrique Santos Discépolo.

The year is 1930. It is clear to Gardel that cinema is the medium that will make him an international star. By '31 he's already in Paris shooting Luces de Buenos Aires at the studios of Joinville-le-Pont. From then until his premature death in 1935 he spends more of his life in the studio than he does on the stage.

 

[From Tango, 1933. El Cachafaz is front and center at the start of the clip.]

In the year 1933, tango and film were conjoined in a film titled simply, Tango. It features the best singers of the era: Azucena Maizani, Mercedes Simone, Tita Merello, Alberto Gómez, and Libertad Lamarque accompanied by the orchestras of Juan de Dios Filiberto, Osvaldo Fresedo, Pedro Maffia, Juan D'Arienzo, and Edgardo Donato. Amidst the hurly-burly of dancers from the conventillos (cheap boarding houses) and peringundines (disreputable “dance academies”) appears the elegant silhouette of El Cachafaz. This quintessential tango moment is projected worldwide. From then on, theaters all over America and Europe demand films featuring tango. 

Tango becomes a measure of cinematic value. A film succeeds or fails based on its tango content.  No one cares about the plot any more; only the music matters. In the film Ídolos de la Radio, the Argentine producers offer little more than a parade of tangueros taking turns at a microphone, and this formula strikes a nerve. Some of the greats who were missing from the earlier film are included now: Ignacio Corsini, Dorita Davis, Canaro. From the thirties on every tango singer aspires to this new path. Those with acting talent succeed while those without are consigned to the stage or withdraw to the closed world of clubs and cabarets.

From Musica y poesía del tango, pp. 161-163, by Antonio Pau (Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Antonio Pau Pedrón. English version by Michael Krugman, Copyright © 2013. 

Pugliese and "Recuerdo"

From Musica y poesía del tango, pp. 133-134, by Antonio Pau (Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Antonio Pau Pedrón. English version by Michael Krugman, Copyright © 2013.

 Rarely has it happened that a single tango, especially one specific recorded version of it, could stand as the summit of a composer’s output. Nevertheless, it happened that way in the case of Osvaldo Pugliese’s Recuerdo, penned when he was just nineteen, and the recording made by Julio de Caro’s orchestra on November 9, 1926. It is inarguably the high point of that composer’s long and brilliant career.

Recuerdo - Julio De Caro

When Recuerdo was played, one had the sensation that a window had been opened, a gust of fresh air rearranging the contents of the room. Everything bright and vital had been buried under a pile of dull, repetitive stuff. Recuerdo sorted it out in an instant, bringing the brightness to the top where it could be seen. 

Pugliese’s rhythms showed that what had come before was not the whole story, that tango could be much more than that. You didn’t need the singer, with his song of sorrow, suffering, and love betrayed. It was enough to draw a circle from which sound struggled to escape, tracing jagged, anxious silhouettes in its desperate flight. And the composition of Recuerdo is just that, the wake that trails behind a fleeing melody.

 The notes of Recuerdo were not written all at once; they are not the fruit of ecstatic inspiration. Over many months Pugliese kept polishing the rhythms, honing them, until he could do no more. Then he wrote out a clean copy. Starting out this way is not without risk. To create a masterpiece like this at the age of nineteen would seem to have only two possible outcomes: to repeat oneself or to go silent. Pugliese did neither. He knew that for him, inspiration lay there, on the lined music paper, his hands skimming over the keys. And so it was. Inspiration came. Not always, of course. Some Pugliese tangos are merely workmanlike, others are truly inspired. The former are good, because he was a dedicated, industrious composer. But the latter are extraordinary: La Yumba, A los artistas plásticos, Adiós Bardi, Corazoneando, Cardo y Malvón. There is no other tango composer who renews himself with each composition.

 To Recuerdo, which was conceived as an instrumental, lyrics were added by the poet Eduardo Moreno. The composer didn’t object.

Mujer, de mi poema mejor;

Mujer, yo nunca tuve un amor.

Perdón si eres mi gloria ideal,

Perdón, serás mi verso inicial.

The lyric, equal parts touching and awkward, is explained by the age of the author: fifteen.

Recuerdo has been one of the most frequently recorded tangos, with or without vocal. But seventy-five years and several generations of musicians have passed, and the most definitive version, the tightest and most precise, continues to be that of Julio de Caro and his Sextet.

 

Ventarrón: Faded glory

We've all danced to this bouncy, arrastre-drenched number as recorded by the Orquesta Típica Victor. It's pure tango joy! But what do the words say? Ventarrón is easy to decode, a "Strong Wind" (as illustrated by the cover of the sheet music, right). But who is this Strong Wind? And what are they saying about him? Turns out, he's a well known barrio character; his tough-guy exploits have been on everyone's lips for years. But maybe he's not such a tough guy after all....

Our original English-language version of VENTARRÓN was published three years ago. This updated version was created with the indispensable assistance and insight of María Rosa Braile.

Our subtitled video of Ada Falcón's performance of VENTARRÓN in Spanish and English is below, followed by face-to-face translation with explanatory notes. We chose the Falcón version because 1) it's great and 2) it contains the full lyrics, unlike the more familiar danceable version recorded by the Orquesta Típica Victor. Next time you dance to it, you'll know the back story. We hope it will enhance your enjoyment of the song as you listen and as you dance!

Ventarrón (1933) 
Music: Pedro Maffia*
Lyric: José Horacio Staffolani
Tango Decoder version: Michael Krugman

Por tu fama, por tu estampa, sos el malevo mentado del hampa; sos el más taura entre todos los tauras, sos el mismo Ventarrón. ¿Quién te iguala por tu rango en las canyengues quebradas del tango, en la conquista de los corazones, si se da la ocasión?   Entre el malevaje, Ventarrón a vos te llaman... Ventarrón, por tu coraje, por tus hazañas todos te aclaman... A pesar de todo, Ventarrón dejó Pompeya y se fue tras de la estrella que su destino le señaló.      Muchos años han pasado y sus guapezas y sus berretines los fue dejando por los cafetines como un castigo de Dios. Solo y triste, casi enfermo, con sus derrotas mordiéndole el alma, volvió el malevo buscando su fama que otro ya conquistó.      Ya no sos el mismo, Ventarrón, de aquellos tiempos. Sos cartón para el amigo y para el maula un pobre cristo. Y al sentir un tango compadrón y retobado, recordás aquel pasado, las glorias guapas de Ventarrón.

By your looks, by your reputation, you’re a gangster, a made man.* You’re the toughest of the tough guys, you’re the same Ventarrón! Who can equal your distinction in dancing bawdy, brazen tangos,* in the conquest of hearts, if you get the chance? Among the thugs and thieves, Ventarrón, they call you.... "Strong Wind," for your courage, for your exploits everyone applauds you... Despite all that, Ventarrón left Pompeya* and hid behind a star that his destiny led him to. Many years have passed, Ventarrón, along with the flashy suits and the wild delusions  you left behind in the gin mills* like a scourge of God. Now, sad and alone, past his prime, his defeats eating at his soul, the tough guy returned, looking for his reputation that's already taken by someone else. Now you’re not the same Ventarrón of those times. You’re an empty suit to a friend,*  and a nobody to the good-for-nothing.* And when you hear a swaggering, edgy tango you recall that past, the glamorous glories of Ventarrón.

Notes:

* Pedro Maffia: Check out Julio Nudler's bio of Maffia at TodoTango.com.

* gangster, made man: El malevo mentado del hampa. (Lunfardo) A malevo is a criminal or malefactor; mentado means noted, accepted, recognized; hampa denotes the criminal underworld. Hence, a man accepted and recognized among the criminal underworld.

* bawdy, brazen tangos: Canyengues quebradas del tango. Canyengue is an early, erotically-charged style of tango music and dance closely associated with the arrabal. A quebrada is a canyengue-inspired figure in which the woman bends backward at the waist, tosses her head back, and assumes a horizontal position. This was considered lewd or suggestive. Rarely practiced in social dancing today, the quebrada is sometimes seen in tango shows.

* Pompeya: A poor barrio to the south of Buenos Aires, often called the birthplace of tango. Memorialized in Homero Manzi’s lyrics for Barrio de tango (1943) and Sur (1949).

* gin mills: Cafetines, lower class bars.

* flashy suits and wild delusions: Guapezas y berretines (Lunf.)

* empty suit: cartón. María Rosa Braile points out that cartón is a shorthand way of saying cartón pintado ("painted cardboard") or ser pintado ("to be painted"), expressions that denote a person who isn't authentic, someone whose exterior appearance conceals a lack of inner substance. Hence, an "empty suit."

* a nobody to the good-for-nothing. A pobre cristo ("poor Christ") is a nobody, someone who has been betrayed and condemned, someone everybody makes fun of. A maula is a useless person, a good-for-nothing, a coward or a traitor.

Marol

Maui DJ Rose tells me this is one of her favorite songs. This version's for you, Rose!

Marol - Rodolfo Biagi/Alberto Amor (1946) 

Marol
Lyrics: Federico Silva (René Federico Silva Iraluz)
Music: Alberto Nery (Justino Idalberto Nery)
Tango Decoder version by Michael Krugman

The night was painted smoke black*
The wheels of a carriage left a track. 
With smoke black I’ll rub out my laments,  
With the murky black of ancient night.

Rundown barrio, narrow back street,
Gate and pavement, little puddle and streetlamp,
A street-corner Gardel, a flowered calico,
And in the soft night, wisteria and hollyhock.

Marol...Marol...Marol, you are of this barrio
Of this distant barrio of yesterdays and nostalgia
Marol, your hands and your voice have gone,
The fire in your eyes has died out,*
But my heart will not forget you so soon, Marol.

*Smoke black: Negro de humo (smoke black or carbon black) is a pigment produced by the incomplete combustion of wood or other materials, used in paints and printers ink. It is a recurring image in the lyric.
 
*The fire in your eyes has gone out: Se apagaron tus pupilas de carbón. Literally, “Your pupils of coal have been extinguished.”

[Original text follows]

Marol 
Letra: Federico Silva (René Federico Silva Iraluz) 
Música: Alberto Nery (Justino Idalberto Nery)

Con negro de humo se pintó la noche
Le pusieron filos las ruedas de un coche,
Con negro de humo borraré mis quejas
Con el negro turbio de la noche vieja.
 
Barrio trasnochado, callejuela angosta
Portón y empedrado, charquito y farol,
Un Gardel de esquina, un percal floreado
Y en la noche mansa, glicina y malvón.
 
Marol... Marol... Marol, tú eras de ese barrio
De ese barrio lejano del ayer y la nostalgia,
Marol se marcharon tus manos y tu voz,
Se apagaron tus pupilas de carbón
Pero mi emoción ya no te olvidará, Marol.

Subtitled Video #58: CUATRO PALABRAS ("Four words") Petrucelli/Charlo, 1933

I hope you'll enjoy Luís Rubistein's 1933 tango Cuatro Palabras (Four Words) by Adolfo Carabelli and his Orquesta Típica with vical by Charlo and the great Elvin Vardaro on violin. Vardaro has a gorgeous solo on this track.

The song was penned by Luis Rubistein (that's him in the pic), a prolific and highly regarded Russian-Jewish-Argentine tango composer whose many titles include Charlemos, Ya sale el tren, Cadenas, Nada más, Tarde gris, and Marión. There's an extensive bio of Rubinstein at TodoTango.com. Worth a read. 

After dancing to this song many times and understanding that the title meant "Four Words," I found myself wondering, "What are the four words?" So of course I had to find out! My version of the lyrics--and the four words--is below.

CUATRO PALABRAS (1933)
Words and music: Luis Rubinstein

Que te vaya bien me dijiste colgandome el tubo de tu telefon Que te vaya bien murmuremos tu llanto entre dientes una maldición. Que te vaya bien significa que nunca en la vida volverás a ser mia otra vez. Cuatro palabras que sintetizan mi amargura Cuatro palabras que me robaron tu ternura Pero sin embargo fuiste mala porque yo te quise como a Dios No solo te quise, aún te quiero  así mala y todo como sos.

“I wish you well,” you said to me, as you hung up the phone. “I wish you well,” we both muttered, your tears an unspoken curse. “I wish you well,” means never in this life will you be mine again. Four words that summarize my bitterness. Four words that rob me of your tenderness. But even so, you were wrong, because I worshipped you like God. Not only did I love you, I love you still, wrong and all that you are.

 

 

 

 

The organito

From Musica y poesía del tango, pp. 33-35, by Antonio Pau (Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Antonio Pau Pedrón. English version by Michael Krugman, Copyright © 2013. The painting is "El último organito" by Juan Carlos Lemmo via artelista.com.] 

The organito [a portable, mechanical barrel organ--MK] is the missing link between the bordello tango of the arrabal--the outlying slums of Buenos Aires--and the refined tango of the café. The organito is the great emancipator of tango, that which lifted it out of its miserable childhood, dressed it in fancy clothes, and found it a decent home. The organito projected its mechanical tangos into the windows of the middle class neighborhoods, thus transforming the forbidden melodies into something domestic and familiar.

El Último Organito -Anibal Troilo (1949) 

The organito of Buenos Aires and Montevideo is the twin brother of the organillo madrileño. But the more sedentary organillo is born and dies in place, while the organito of the Río de la Plata is restless: it leaves the suburbs and makes its way to the center of the city. The organillo goes nowhere, while the organito expands and conquers. 

1900 is the keydate for this modest but efficient diffuser of tango. The cardboard cylinders that house the melodies become plentiful,and new tunes are composed for it—some as beautiful as El Choclo. When it has completed its mission, the organito dies. Tango has been accepted; the orchestra takes the place of the organillero. Homero Manzi left this beautiful lyric in memory of The Last Organito:

The mud-caked wheels of the last organito
Will appear out of the evening, seeking the arrabal:
An emaciated horse, a lame fellow, a monkey,
Trailing a chorus of girls dressed in percale.

With muted steps, he’ll choose the corner
Where the moonlight mixes with the light of the shopfronts 
So that the pale marquis and the pale marquess can dance 
Their mechanical waltzes in the vaulted niche....

Before it dies, the organito seeks assistance from fortune. This final stage of its destiny is very poetic and tanguero. The humble musicians of the organito, seeing their repertoire passing into more capable hands, station trained parrots on the lid of the instrument. For the price of a coin, the bird dips his beak in a bag and pulls out a slip of paper with a fortune written on it. There are only twenty or thirty fortunes available to the hapless patron. Tango has lost its leading role, and is reduced to musical accompaniment for these doubtful predictions.

These scenarios combining fate, misfortune, and music were not lost on the lyricists of tango. One of them was recounted in Cotorrita de la suerte (Lucky parrot), written by José de Grandis:

How the obrerita—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,
“Lucky parrot!
Predicts life or death.
Want to try your luck?”

The obrerita resists, doubting and fearing
the rose-colored paper
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,
“Lucky parrot!”

The organito, its shabby operator, the couples who danced to its sickly-sweet tones and, moreover, the memory of them, the nostalgia for them, has survived into the twentieth century to become the subject of numerous tangos: Organito (Juan Carlos Gravis), Música de organito (Manuel Buzón and Osvaldo and Carlos Moreno), Organito del suburbio (Antonio Bonavena), Organito arrabalero (Ernesto Baffa y José Libertella), along with Organito de la tarde, with music by Catúlo Castillo and lyrics by his father, José González Castillo, which was recorded by Carlos Gardel in 1925.

 

El Yacaré (The Alligator)

For me, tangos by the Two Angels--bandleader Angel D'Agostino and singer Angel Vargas (right)--always have an uplifting feeling, even when they sing of sadness or loss. Sometimes the atmosphere at a milonga can feel really heavy, and then Tres Esquinas or Madreselva comes on, and everything changes. I feel like I'm getting a second wind, and I could dance all night. 

Here's one of my favorite D'Agostino songs, the bouncy, oft-heard "El Yacaré." The title, which means The Alligator, refers not to the fearsome marine reptile but to the nickname of a wildly popular jockey of the 40s, Eliás Antúnez. Remember, not all tango lyrics are about lost love or duels to the death! Some are about drinking, gambling, mother, flowers, the sea, or tango itself. And then there's this one, all about a jockey.

El Yacaré

 A nice bio of El Yacaré lyricist Mario Soto is at TodoTango.com. There's more commentary from me in the notes following the lyrics. There's a YouTube video of the song down there, too, and of course Soto's lyric in the original language. 

El Yacaré (The Alligator)
Music by Alfredo Attadia, lyrics by Mario Soto
English version by Michael Krugman

It's Sunday, Palermo* glitters in the sun,
Hope rides on every horse* in the ring.
The thoroughbreds toe the line
And at the shout of “They’re off!” they leap out of the gate.
In the middle of the pack, biding his time,
A jockey waits with quiet poise.
Now he's getting ready to charge...an infernal outcry...
He hits the home stretch and the crowd goes wild.

"Come on, Alligator!"
The deafening cry explodes.
They all flog like crazy
But it’s no use:
Antúnez* is already in the winner’s circle.
You sure know how to pick a loser
To win a Grand National...
Wild Angel*? What a longshot!
But there she is, the top of the scoreboard,
As always your triumphant finish line.

An artist at the reins, the courage of a lion,
All the marks of a true champion.
Surveying the track like a sharpshooter,
The path to the winner’s circle is in your sights.
In the grandstand they all marvel at your tenacity and skill,
Your winning ways have got them all wound up.
In one crazy outburst they yell themselves hoarse
When hell for leather* you start your furious charge.

Notes:
*Palermo: El Hipodromo Argentino de Palermo, Buenos Aires' main racetrack.
*Horse: Pingo, Arg. slang for a good horse. Nice word!
*Antúnez: Eliás Antuñez (b. 1907), legendary jockey known as El Yacaré, won the Gran Premio Pellegrini in 1941 and 1950 and the Gran Premio Nacional in 1949.
*Wild Angel: Muñeca Brava. I don't see any evidence that this really was one of Antúnez's horses. The name may be fanciful.
*Hell for leather: The original is a taco y lonja, literally, by heels and by leather strap. Sounds like "hell for leather" to me.

 

[Original text en castellano follows]

El Yacaré

Es domingo, Palermo resplandece de sol,
cada pingo en la arena llevará una ilusión.
En las cintas los puros alineados están
y a la voz de “¡Largaron!” da salida un afán.
En el medio del lote, conteniendo su acción,
hay un jockey que aguarda con serena atención,
ya se apresta a la carga... griterío infernal.
Emoción que desborda en un bravo final.

¡Arriba viejo Yacaré!
Explota el grito atronador.
Todos castigan con rigor,
pero no hay nada que hacer,
en el disco ya está Antúnez.
Sabés sacar un perdedor,
ganar un Premio Nacional...
Muñeca brava y al final
el tope del marcador
siempre es tu meta triunfal.

Un artista en las riendas, con coraje de león,
tenés toda la clase que consagra a un campeón.
Dominando la pista con certera visual
el camino del disco vos sabés encontrar.
Las tribunas admiran tu pericia y tesón
y se rinde a tu arte con intensa emoción.
Se enronquecen gargantas en un loco estallar,
cuando a taco y a lonja empezás a cargar.