Zaraza

Bucureştiul interbelic este locul unde s-a întâmplat totul, pre-war Bucharest was the place where everything happened, announces the phrase by Ioana Pârvulescu that has became a proverb from her Întoarcere în Bucureştiul interbelic, “Return to pre-war Bucharest” (2002), a pioneering work of the recent Bucharest revival.

Pre-war Bucharest was micul Paris, a small Paris, the capital of a suddenly rounded out country promising unlimited chances, with an elit educated in France and with palaces built on French model, with clean streets and tramways, cafés and places of entertainment where the greatest stars, Jean Moscopol, Cristian Vasile, Titi Botez, Dorel Livianu, Maria Tanase, Zavaidoc, Petre Alexandru sang the most fashionable and most characteristic genre of contemporary Central Europe, the one expressing both the desperate will to live and the tragic atmosphere of the age: the tango.

The Oteleseanu House, once the place of the most celebrated balls and receptions. Its café was the center of the bohemian life of Bucharest. Now its place is occupied by the central post office.

After the war all that came to an end. As Budapest was cleared of its cafés by the new regime, so was Bucharest cleared of its places of entertainment. Jean Moscopol became a concierge in New York, Cristian Vasile died in indigence in Brăila. Bucharest sank into poverty and was denuded, so that its modern inhabitants look with incredulity at the old photos. And then the megalomaniac building activity of Ceauşescu wiped off a great part of the old city forever. The extent of this destruction is well demonstrated in the recent post of Dumneazu (it looks like in this month we keep writing about the same topics). When walking about in the Bucharest of the ’80s, we watched in bewilderment the destroyed city while our local friend enumerated with melancholy the splendid buildings once standing here and there. The majority of great tango singers still were alive in the early ’80s, but in contrast to the Buena Vista Social Club nobody discovered them. There remained only some vinyl disks left behind by them as well as some old people who still remembered their songs.

The palace of Regal Cinema, Café Corso and Columbia Records was built by Leonida Negrescu in 1900. It was demolished during the enlargement of Calea Victoriei.

It was these two sources that the Romanian singer of Berlin Oana Cătălina Chiţu drew on when at a distance of sixty years she revived this forgotten world on her CD Bucharest Tango published in the last year. She has complemented the songs heard from her father with the old 78 rpm records of their Bucharest relatives to create in 2007 together with Romanian and German musicians the show “Bukarester Tango”. This CD displays the most popular tangos and chansons of pre-war Bucharest. Right the second one is the most famous Romanian song of all times: the Zaraza.

Când apari seniorita în parc pe-nserat Curg în juru-ţi petale de crin Ai în ochi patimi dulci şi luciri de păcat Şi ai trupul de şarpe felin Gura ta e-un poem de nebune dorinţi Sânii tăi un tezaur sublim Eşti un demon din vis care tulburi şi minţi Dar ai zâmbetul de heruvim Vreau să-mi spui frumoasă Zaraza Cine te-a iubit Câţi au plâns nebuni pentru tine Şi câţi au murit Vreau să-mi dai gura-ţi dulce Zaraza Să mă-mbete mereu De a ta sărutare Zaraza vreau sa mor şi eu.

When you appear in the park at sunset, señorita, lily petals are falling around you, sweet desire and sinful lights burn in your eyes and your body is a curling serpent. Your mouth is an ode to mad desires, your breast a sublime treasure. You’re a demon of dreams that stir up and lie but your smile is that of a cherub. Tell me, beautiful Zaraza: who has already loved you? How many have crazily cried and how many have died for you? Give me your sweet lips, Zaraza, poison me continuously! From your kiss, Zaraza I want to die, too.

Zaraza was the most famous song of Cristian Vasile called “the last troubadour”, and Vasile was the most famous performer of this song. Their names have become inseparable in the memory of the golden years of Bucharest, so much that the writer Stelian Tănase could call with reason the pre-war city “the Bucharest of Zaraza”.


Cristian Vasile: Zaraza

The song has created its myth. Mircea Cărtărescu, the apocryphal chronicler of the Bucharest revival first published the story of Cristian Vasile and his lover, the beautiful Gypsy girl Zaraza in his volume of short stories De ce iubim femeile (Why we love women) of 2004, the most successful book of post-1990 Romania. Of the two great singers Cristian Vasile and Zavaidoc, competing in the early ’40s for the favors of the dancer of the bar “Vulpea Roşie”/Red Fox, the former won, but the latter revenged himself. Zaraza died, and Vasile disappeared from the theatre of Bucharest. Only the song continued to be sung

“all over the city: Zaraza became the Lili Marlene of Bucharest. It was sung in the bars, in the air raid shelters, in the trenches. The enchanting Gypsy girl became just as renowned as her famous lover.”

Although this touching story, as the author confesses it in a footnote, is entirely the product of his imagination, nevertheless the public has received it with pleasure, and today it is already spreading over the web as a true story. A popular audio book version has just been published, and in 2008 even a Hollywood-style film was released of it. One of the most memorable scenes of this latter is exactly the one where Vasile sings Zaraza to the public of the Red Fox bar.

Although the name of the beautiful Gypsy girl sounds strange to Romanian ears, nevertheless Cărtărescu has his explanation at hand, further developed by the review of his book in an almost philological thoroughness: “Zaraza, or more exactly Zarada is a traditional Gypsy name, whose original Spanish meaning is «beautiful» or «shining».”

Although the Spanish language knows no such word, nevertheless the reference to the Spanish origin is quite revealing. In fact, this most Romanian tango is simply an adoption of a South American tango. The original song was written by the Argentine Benjamín Tagle Lara (1892-1932) likewise with the title Zaraza, and in 1929 it won the second price of the authoritative Concurso del Disco Nacional of Montevideo, organized by Max Glücksmann. In the same year it was recorded with three great singers: José Razzano, Ignacio Corsini and Charlo with the Canaro Francisco band. However, in the original song Zaraza is the name not of a beautiful Gypsy woman, but of another attractive being with a similarly black, deep and melancholic look. Of an ox.

Blanca huella que, todos los dias, clavado en el yugo, me ves picanear; compañera del largo camino las horas enteras te veo blanquear. Mientras que, bajo el peso del trigo, los ejes cansados los siento quejar, yo, anudando mi pena a esa queja, con cantos y silbos te sé acompañar. ¡A la huella, huella, zaraza, huella, huella, guay! Volverá la ingrata a su casa andará por ahí… Que si yo la viera, zaraza, la hablaré, velay… ¡A la huella, huella, zaraza, huella, huella, guay! Buey zaraza, tus ojos tristones mirando la huella parecen buscar el milagro de aquellos pasitos que al irse la ingrata no supo dejar. Compañero que, unido conmigo a un mismo destino, tenemos que andar, seguiremos rastreando la huella, la misma que siempre la vemos blanquear.

White path that see me every day at the yoke, while pricking the ox: my companion in the long walk, I watch your white color for long hours. And while I see the tired eyes complaining under the weight of the wheat, I join my pain to their complaint and accompany you with singing and whistling. Go ahead, go, zaraza, go ahead, go, hey! Will the ungrateful one come home or is she rather wandering far away… If I will see her, zaraza, I will speak to her for sure… Go ahead, go, zaraza, go ahead, go, hey! Zaraza ox, your sorrowful eyes watching the path seem to look for those wonderful small footsteps that the ungrateful one has failed to leave. My companion, in union with me and sharing the same fate, we have to go, always following the path, always the same that lays white ahead of us.

This song was made popular in Paris by the greatest tango singer Carlos Gardel, the already mentioned “Creole Thrush”. Glücksmann tried to convince him to record this song too, but Gardel declined this honor by saying that he found it dishonest to compete with the record by Razzano. He recorded instead El carretero, “The coachman”, which is an earlier version of the same song. One had to wait eleven years to the energetic record by Rodolfo Biagi which was probably the one to get to Bucharest.


Rodolfo Biagi: Zaraza (1940). From the album Campo Afuera y su Orquesta Típica 1939-1942.

Others say that this song was made popular in Europe by the film Rive gauche (1931) of the British producer of Hungarian origin Sir Alexander Korda, in which it was sung by Sofía Bozán who had performed in Paris together with Gardel. This film also inspired the Polish version of the song, performed by Wiera Gran and Albert Harris with the title Gdy gitara gra piosenkę, “When the guitar is playing a song” (1939). The change of the title was motivated by the fact that in Polish zaraza means – pestilence.

Anyway, in Bucharest the song became popular in the performance of Cristian Vasile and with the text of Nicolae Kiriţescu which preserved the call word zaraza! of the Spanish refrain, endowing it with a new meaning.

The exact meaning of this word in the original Spanish text which apparently uses it as the name of the ox but writes it in minuscule, is not that easy to clarify. According to the dictionary it means “calico” or “printed textile”, but this does not seem to have any sense here. In the opinion of Río Wang’s fellow Argentine author Julia nowadays it is used in the sense of “mumbo jumbo” (written sometimes “sarasa” and pronounced in the same way). Her mother even recalls that it might have been used for oxen of a certain color, and even as an ox name, as Gardel uses it in the above quoted El carretero.

Finally Julia has come across Malena’s tango blog, whose Argentine author had faced the same problem in Zaraza, and her investigations had led to Isidra Solati’s article Un lenguaje de púrpuras y zarazas. According to this essay, the zarazas were the occasional village feasts organized at the arrival of a wandering musician, where the only decoration was a hastily stretched out piece of textile: a zaraza. This word full of desires and festive atmosphere has later become the refrain of coachmen singing and urging their ox, and finally also a name for the ox.

View from the Kretzulescu Inn. Since then both the inn and the street has been demolished.

In spite of this meandering story, my favorite song on Oana Cătălina Chiţu’s album is not Zaraza, but the once successful romance by Titi Botez: Sub balcon eu ţi-am cântat o serenadă, “I have serenaded under your balcon”.


Titi Botez: Sub balcon eu ţi-am cântat o serenadă, original recording.

Its melody and especially its refrain suggests of having been also adopted from a foreign original, but the identity of this original is still a mystery even to our Argentine sources. The investigation is in process. As soon as we’ll have some result, we will get in touch again.

The Athénée Palace. The source of the images of old Bucharest is Tudor Octavian: Bucureştiul interbelic: Calea Victoriei, Bucharest 2009.

The zorzal

All this talk about nightingales in the previous posts has brought to my mind what could be considered their equivalent at us, around the Rio de la Plata: the zorzal (Turdus rufiventris, rufous-bellied thrush).

America does not have the same bird which is called nightingale in the Old Continent, although for example in the Caribbean there are a few that had been given that name. (It is really fascinating how the European names were gradually given to new and different species on American soil, as a consequence of the nostalgic vision of explorers and conquistadors.)

The zorzal is undoubtedly the best known songbird in the Rio de la Plata Basin. Just like the nightingale, it has a very melodious song and it is heard specially between night and dawn, in springtime, when the courting and mating season begins.

In cities, many zorzals are to be found in harmonious coexistence with humans. And in the springtime, that is between the months of October and November, many porteños, even those who know nothing about ornithology, begin to identify it as the bird which makes them wake up at dawn. To tell the truth, however charming the zorzal be, I can vouch that its penetrating and repetitive call at night can be unnerving for a light sleeper.

Like the mockingbird and the nightingale, the zorzal does not have one unique song. It varies not only according to the season of the year, but also according to the geographic zone and even from one individual to another. This is due to the fact that they imitate the songs of other birds, so that on occasions they create very particular “remixes”, even imitating the noise of motors, windmills or bells that were near their nests, thus puzzling many an ornithologist. Moreover, the song is the males’ weapon of seduction, so that while some individuals are very young and inexpert, others are mature and own a wide and proved repertoire of complex songs which have already afforded them successful conquests.


The song of the zorzal, from here

The zorzal is such an emblem of a melodious voice that Carlos Gardel, the most famous tango singer of the last century was known as “El Zorzal Criollo” (“The Creole Thrush”).

The two tangos that Gardel sings here are classic and very well known (even by those who, like myself, know nothing about tango). Many lines of these songs have become standard sayings, proverbs and aphorisms. They are also very good examples of the use of lunfardo porteño, the argot of Buenos Aires, which probably few Spanish speakers from other regions are able to decode without difficulty.

The first tango, “Mano a mano” (We’re Even) tells of a woman who, being of humble origins, now considers herself a “bacana” (a wealthy person who puts on elegant airs). In former times she accepted the singer’s love but now she holds it in contempt, because she has a rich “otario”, (a sucker, a fool) who keeps her and lets her throw “morlacos a la marchanta” (money around). He therefore speaks up with the intention of warning her that her vain illusions, her ephemeral triumphs will not last long and will soon leave her “like an old, unstuck, piece of furniture”: forgotten and hopeless.

I think we agree that this is the discourse which all of us spited by unreciprocated love would like to inflict on those by whom we have been forsaken. Al least, it is a feeling that well depicts a porteño: if something makes him suffer, he will always try to show to the other that he is beyond insults and contempt because he “knows” that the other will end up worse than himself.

Mano a mano – We’re Even
Music: Carlos Gardel & José Razzano. Lyrics: Celedonio Flores

(The lyrics of the tangos, just like the text of the whole post, have been translated from Spanish to English by María Lía Macchi to whom I’m infinitely grateful for the great job!)

Rechiflao en mi tristeza, te evoco y veo que has sido de mi pobre vida paria sólo una buena mujer tu presencia de bacana puso calor en mi nido fuiste buena, consecuente, y yo sé que me has querido como no quisiste a nadie, como no podrás querer. Se dio el juego de remanye cuando vos, pobre percanta, gambeteabas la pobreza en la casa de pensión: hoy sos toda una bacana, la vida te ríe y canta, los morlacos del otario los tirás a la marchanta como juega el gato maula con el misero ratón. Hoy tenés el mate lleno de infelices ilusiones te engrupieron los otarios, las amigas, el gavión la milonga entre magnates con sus locas tentaciones donde triunfan y claudican milongueras pretensiones se te ha entrado muy adentro en el pobre corazón. Nada debo agradecerte, mano a mano hemos quedado, no me importa lo que has hecho, lo que hacés ni lo que harás; los favores recibidos creo habértelos pagado y si alguna deuda chica sin querer se había olvidado en la cuenta del otario que tenés se la cargás. Mientras tanto, que tus triunfos, pobres triunfos pasajeros, sean una larga fila de riquezas y placer; que el bacán que te acamala tenga pesos duraderos que te abrás en las paradas con cafishios milongueros y que digan los muchachos: “Es una buena mujer”. Y mañana cuando seas deslocado mueble viejo y no tengas esperanzas en el pobre corazón si precisás una ayuda, si te hace falta un consejo acordate de este amigo que ha de jugarse el pellejo p’ayudarte en lo que pueda cuando llegue la ocasión.

Out of my mind with sadness I think about you again, and I see that in my poor miserable life you were just a good woman. Your elegant beauty gave warmth to my nest, you were kind and loyal, and I know you’ve loved me like you’ve loved no one like you’ll never love again. We fell for each other when you were a poor girl who was trying to outsmart poverty in a boarding house: Today you’re a lady, life smiles and sings to you, you squander your sucker’s bucks just like an evil cat plays around with a wretched mouse. Today your brain is crammed with unattainable daydreams. you’ve been deluded by your suckers, your girlfriends and your beau. The parties thrown by tycoons with their mad temptations where the ambitions of dance hall girls triumph or fall apart have become deeply embedded into your wretched heart. I have no reason to be grateful, we’re even. I don’t care what you’ve done, what you do now, or what you’ll do. All the favours I have received, I’m sure I’ve already paid for. And if I’ve unwittingly forgotten some small debt, you can charge it on your current sucker’s account. Meanwhile, I hope that your success, poor, ephemeral success, stretches out as a long line of riches and pleasures, that the tycoon who keeps you has lasting money that you can show off in public places with swinging pimps and that all the guys may agree “That’s a fine woman!” And tomorrow, when you are an old, discarded piece of junk, and no hope is left in your poor heart, if you will need help, if you’re in want of advice, remember this friend who would risk his skin To help you in everything that he can when the need arises.

This other tango, also very famous, is by Enrique Santos Discepolo, a great porteño musician and poet. As it can be seen, it exhales nothing but bitterness and skepticism, a vision of life very typical of tangos and particularly characteristic of Discepolo, also the author of the well known “Cambalache”: “El mundo fue y será una porquería/ ya lo sé, en el 503 / y en el 2000 también” (“The world has always been and always will be trash, / I know, in the year 503 / and also in 2000”).

We again find the singer who assumes that he possesses supreme knowledge and therefore warns his listener to harbor no hope because it would be in vain (it’s remarkable how we porteños are defined by this image of the know-it-all…, I want to believe that not all of us are so, but its presence is constant in popular beliefs). Everything is a lie, nothing is love; nobody cares about what happens to the other and no one will help you when you are in need. He knows it because he’s already been through it and he knows about “rajarse los tamangos buscando ese mango que te haga morfar”, wearing out your shoes in search of money with which to eat. So when the other gets to realize that those around him are preparing to step into his clothes when he fails: “manyés que a tu lado se prueben las pilchas que vas a dejar” (manyés, ‘realize’ is another argot word that comes from the Italian, mangiare, to eat, because when you become aware of something it’s as if you ate it, you incorporated it spiritually), he will remember the warnings that were made to him.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect is the image with which the tango begins on which all the subsequent development is based. “Cuando la suerte, que es grela”, that is, ‘luck, who is a woman’. Since ancient times luck, opportunity or fortune has been represented as a woman, and here is important not only the tradition of representing vices and virtues with allegorical feminine figures, but also the supposedly changing moods attributed to women or, what is more admissible, their changes of status, like those of the moon. Opportunity or fortune was therefore represented as a woman on a wheel or a sphere, because she is never stable, she goes turning and thus changing the fortunes of men. This is precisely what the tango suggests by saying “yira, yira”, that is, it goes round and round, (with another contamination by the Italian girare). But “yiro” was also the name given to prostitutes in lunfardo, because they wander around (yiran) corners of the city in search of clients. We have then the concept of luck that’s a woman, that lets you down (“fallando, fallando”) and leaves you without what you have expected of her (“Te largue parao”). Fortune goes round like a prostitute and she IS a prostitute. And this is the image of the world which has nothing stable or sure, except this bitter truth.

Yira, Tira – Going Round and Round
Music & Lyrics: Enrique S. Discépolo, 1930

Cuando la suerte, que es grela, fallando y fallando te largue parao… Cuando estés bien en la vía, sin rumbo, desesperao… Cuando no tengas ni fe, ni yerba de ayer secándose al sol… Cuando rajés los tamangos buscando ese mango que te haga morfar… la indiferencia del mundo que es sordo y es mudo recién sentirás. Verás que todo es mentira, verás que nada es amor… que al mundo nada le importa Yira… Yira… Aunque te quiebre la vida, aunque te muerda un dolor, no esperes nunca una ayuda, ni una mano, ni un favor… Cuando estén secas las pilas de todos los timbres que vos apretás, buscando un pecho fraterno para morir abrazao… Cuando te dejen tirao después de cinchar, lo mismo que a mí… Cuando manyés que a tu lado se prueban la ropa que vas a dejar… ¡Te acordarás de este otario que un día, cansado, se puso a ladrar!

When Fortune, who’s a woman, leaves you on the lurch… When you’re completely broke, aimless and desperate… When you no longer have faith nor yesterday’s mate leaves drying in the sun… When you wear out your shoes in search of a buck to buy food… Only then will you feel the indifference of the deaf and dumb World. You’ll realize that everything’s a lie that nothing is love… that the world doesn’t care at all, it just keeps going round and round… Even though life is tearing you apart even though you’re broken by pain, don’t ever expect any help, an aiding hand, or a favour… When you’ve dried out the batteries of all the doorbells that you’ve rung looking for a brotherly bosom to embrace and die… When you’re thrown away after you’ve slaved as they did to me… When you realize that they’re trying on the clothes that you’re leaving behind… You’ll remember this jerk who one day got fed up and started to growl!

But maybe the voice of the “Creole Thrush” is best appreciated in the famous “El día que me quieras” (The Day When You’ll Love Me), which isn’t a proper tango but a tango-ballad. It was composed for the movie by the same title in 1935. Leaving aside the flamboyant gestures and acting of the two leading characters, the matchless melody and the poetry, which is perhaps somewhat kitschy but nevertheless enchants me, is one of our national prides.

El día que me quieras – The Day When You’ll love Me
Music: Carlos Gardel. Lyrics: Alfredo Lepera.

Acaricia mi ensueño el suave murmullo de tu suspirar, ¡como ríe la vida si tus ojos negros me quieren mirar! Y si es mío el amparo de tu risa leve que es como un cantar, ella aquieta mi herida, ¡todo, todo se olvida! El día que me quieras la rosas que engalana se vestirá de fiesta con su mejor color. Al viento las campanas dirán que ya eres mía y locas las fontanas me contarán tu amor. La noche que me quieras desde el azul del cielo, las estrellas celosas nos mirarán pasar y un rayo misterioso hará nido en tu pelo, luciérnaga curiosa que verá… ¡que eres mi consuelo! Recitado: El día que me quieras no habrá más que armonías, será clara la aurora y alegre el manantial. Traerá quieta la brisa rumor de melodías y nos darán las fuentes su canto de cristal. El día que me quieras endulzará sus cuerdas el pájaro cantor, florecerá la vida, no existirá el dolor. La noche que me quieras desde el azul del cielo, las estrellas celosas nos mirarán pasar y un rayo misterioso hará nido en tu pelo, luciérnaga curiosa que verá… ¡que eres mi consuelo!

My daydream is caressed by the light murmur of your sighs. How mirthful life is if your black eyes are willing to look at me! And if your laughter, soft like a song, gives me shelter, my wound is soothed, everything, everything, is forgotten! The day when you’ll love me the embellishing rose will attire itself in its best colours. Bells sounding to the winds will ring out that now you’re mine. And the fountains, insane with joy will tell me of your love. The night, when you’ll love me, peering from the blue of the sky, jealous stars will watch us go by and a mysterious beam will nestle in your hair: an inquisitive firefly who will realize that you’re my solace! Recitative: The day when you’ll love me, there will be only harmony, daybreak will be clear and the spring will be merry the breeze will quietly bring a rumor of melodies and the fountains will offer us their song of crystal. The day when you’ll love me, the songbird will sweeten its cords, life will blossom pain will not exist any more. The night that you love me, peering from the blue of the sky, jealous stars will watch us pass, and a mysterious beam will nestle in your hair: an inquisitive firefly who will realize that you’re my solace!

El zorzal

Tanto hablar de ruiseñores en entradas anteriores me ha hecho pensar en el que podría llamarse nuestro equivalente rioplatense: el zorzal colorado (Turdus rufiventris).

En América no existe exactamente la misma ave a la que en el Viejo Continente se le da el nombre de ruiseñor, por más que hay algunas de ese mismo nombre en el Caribe, por ejemplo (sin duda es fascinante cómo los nombres europeos fueron adjudicándose a especies nuevas y distintas de las tierras americanas, según las miradas nostálgicas de los exploradores y conquistadores).

El zorzal colorado sin duda es el ave cantora más conocida de la cuenca del Río de la Plata. Como el ruiseñor, tiene un canto muy armonioso que se escucha especialmente entre la noche y la madrugada cuando en la primavera comienza la época de cortejo y apareamiento.

Por las ciudades suelen encontrarse muchos zorzales que conviven bien con los humanos. Y más de un porteño sin saber nada de ornitología lo empieza a identificar entre los meses de octubre y noviembre como el pájaro que lo despierta en la madrugada. La verdad sea dicha, por más encantador que pueda ser el zorzal doy fe de que su canto penetrante y repetitivo puede resultar enervante en una noche de sueño liviano.

Como la calandria o el mismo ruiseñor, el zorzal no tiene un único canto, sino que éste varía según la época del año, pero también por la zona geográfica e incluso de individuo a individuo. Es que son pájaros que aprenden el canto de otros, de modo que en ocasiones hacen unas creaciones muy particulares. De estos tres tipos de aves se conocen casos en los que han imitando incluso sonidos de motores, molinos o campanas que tenían cerca de sus nidos, desconcertando a más de un ornitólogo. Pero además el canto es el arma de conquista de los machos, así que los hay jóvenes e inexpertos, y otros maduros con un repertorio amplio y probado de complejos cantos que les han deparado conquistas exitosas.


Un ejemplo de canto del zorzal colorado, de aquí

Tan emblemático es el zorzal como dueño de una voz melodiosa que a Carlos Gardel, el más famoso cantante de tangos del siglo pasado, se lo llamaba «el zorzal criollo».

Los dos tangos que canta aquí Gardel son clásicos y muy conocidos por todos (incluso por quienes como yo no saben nada de tango). Muchos de los versos de las canciones se han convertido en frases hechas, refranes o apotegmas. Son muy buenos ejemplos también para mostrar el uso del lunfardo porteño, que seguramente pocos hablantes de castellano de otras regiones podrán decodificar sin dificultad.

El primer tango, «Mano a mano», habla de una mujer que antes fue humilde y ahora se cree una «bacana» (persona de dinero que la juega de elegante). Antes aceptaba el amor del cantor pero ahora lo desprecia, porque tiene un otario (un ‘tonto’) rico que la mantiene y le permite tirar los morlacos (el ‘dinero’) a la marchanta (‘por los aires’). Él entonces pretende adelantarse y advertirle que poco han de durarle esas vanas ilusiones, esos triunfos pasajeros y que pronto la van a dejar como «deslocado mueble viejo» olvidada y sin esperanzas.

Convengamos que es el discurso que todos los despechados por amor quisiéramos poder lanzarles a quienes nos abandonaron. Es al menos un sentimiento que retrata bien a los porteños: si sufre por algo siempre intentará mostrarle a su victimario que él ya está más allá de las injurias y desprecios porque además «sabe» que el otro terminará peor que él.

Mano A Mano
Música: Gardel y José Razzano. Letra: Celedonio Flores

Rechiflao en mi tristeza, te evoco y veo que has sido de mi pobre vida paria sólo una buena mujer tu presencia de bacana puso calor en mi nido fuiste buena, consecuente, y yo sé que me has querido como no quisiste a nadie, como no podrás querer. Se dio el juego de remanye cuando vos, pobre percanta, gambeteabas la pobreza en la casa de pensión: hoy sos toda una bacana, la vida te ríe y canta, los morlacos del otario los tirás a la marchanta como juega el gato maula con el misero ratón. Hoy tenés el mate lleno de infelices ilusiones te engrupieron los otarios, las amigas, el gavión la milonga entre magnates con sus locas tentaciones donde triunfan y claudican milongueras pretensiones se te ha entrado muy adentro en el pobre corazón.

Nada debo agradecerte, mano a mano hemos quedado, no me importa lo que has hecho, lo que hacés ni lo que harás; los favores recibidos creo habértelos pagado y si alguna deuda chica sin querer se había olvidado en la cuenta del otario que tenés se la cargás. Mientras tanto, que tus triunfos, pobres triunfos pasajeros, sean una larga fila de riquezas y placer; que el bacán que te acamala tenga pesos duraderos que te abrás en las paradas con cafishios milongueros y que digan los muchachos: “Es una buena mujer”. Y mañana cuando seas deslocado mueble viejo y no tengas esperanzas en el pobre corazón si precisás una ayuda, si te hace falta un consejo acordate de este amigo que ha de jugarse el pellejo p’ayudarte en lo que pueda cuando llegue la ocasión.

Este otro tango, también muy famoso, es de Enrique Santos Discepolo, gran músico y poeta porteño. Se verá que no destila más que amargura y escepticismo, una visión de la vida muy típica del tango y especialmente propia de Discepolo, autor también del conocido «Cambalache» («El mundo fue y será una porquería, ya lo sé en el 503 y en el 2000, también»).

Nuevamente encontramos al cantor que se arroga una sabiduría suprema y le advierte a su interlocutor que deje atrás cualquier esperanza porque será vana (es notable cómo nos define a los porteños esta imagen del que se las sabe todas… quiero creer que no somos todo así, pero su presencia es constante en el imaginario popular). Todo es mentira, nada es amor; a nadie le importa nada de lo que le pase al otro y nadie te ayudará cuando lo necesites. Él lo sabe porque ya lo pasó y sabe lo que es rajarse «los tamangos buscando ese mango que te haga morfar»: gastar los zapatos buscando dinero para comer. Así que cuando el otro se dé cuenta de que los que tiene al lado se preparan para usar sus despojos cuando él fracase: «manyés que a tu lado / se prueban la ropa que vas a dejar» (manyés es otro término del lunfardo que viene del italiano, mangiare ‘comer’, porque cuando se toma conciencia de algo es como si se lo comiera, se lo incorporara espiritualmente), recordará las advertencias que le hizo.

Pero quizás el aspecto más interesante para nosotros es la imagen con la que comienza el tango sobre la cual se basa luego todo su desarrollo: «Cuando la suerte, que es grela», es decir ‘la suerte que es mujer’. Desde la antigüedad se representa a la suerte, ocasión o fortuna como una mujer, y aquí tiene peso no sólo la costumbre de la representación de vicios y virtudes en figuras femeninas, sino que cuenta además el supuesto humor cambiante que nos atribuyen a las mujeres o sus, más admisibles, cambios de estados, como la luna. La ocasión o la fortuna se representaba, entonces, como una mujer sobre una rueda o una esfera, porque nunca es estable, va girando y de ese modo va cambiando la suerte de los hombres. De eso mismo habla el tango, cuando dice «yira, yira», es decir gira, gira, (con otra contaminación del italiano, girare). Pero además «yiro» se les decía en lunfardo a las prostitutas, porque yiran por las esquinas de la ciudad buscando clientes. Tenemos entonces la idea de la suerte que es mujer y te falla, te defrauda («fallando, fallando») y te deja sin lo que esperabas de ella («te largue parado»). La suerte yira como una prostituta, la suerte ES una prostituta. Y todo esto es imagen del mundo que no tiene nada estable ni seguro, salvo esta amarga verdad.

Yira yira
Letra y música: Enrique S. Discépolo, 1930

Cuando la suerte, que es grela, fallando y fallando te largue parao.... Cuando estés bien en la vía, sin rumbo, desesperao... Cuando no tengas ni fe, ni yerba de ayer secándose al sol... Cuando rajés los tamangos buscando ese mango que te haga morfar... la indiferencia del mundo que es sordo y es mudo recién sentirás. Verás que todo es mentira, verás que nada es amor... que al mundo nada le importa Yira...Yira...

Aunque te quiebre la vida, aunque te muerda un dolor, no esperes nunca una ayuda, ni una mano, ni un favor... Cuando estén secas las pilas de todos los timbres que vos apretás, buscando un pecho fraterno para morir abrazao... Cuando te dejen tirao después de cinchar, lo mismo que a mí... Cuando manyés que a tu lado se prueban la ropa que vas a dejar... ¡Te acordarás de este otario que un día, cansado, se puso a ladrar!

Pero quizás donde mejor se aprecia la voz del «zorzal criollo» sea en la famosísima «El día que me quieras», que no es un tango puro, sino un tango-canción. Fue compuesta para la película del mismo nombre de 1935. Más allá de lo ampuloso de los gestos y actuaciones de los dos protagonistas, la inigualable melodía y la poesía de la letra, quizás cursi –me podrán decir– pero que a mí me encanta, es uno de nuestros orgullos nacionales.

El día que me quieras
Música: Carlos Gardel - Letra: Alfredo Le Pera

Acaricia mi ensueño el suave murmullo de tu suspirar, ¡como ríe la vida si tus ojos negros me quieren mirar! Y si es mío el amparo de tu risa leve que es como un cantar, ella aquieta mi herida, ¡todo, todo se olvida! El día que me quieras la rosas que engalana se vestirá de fiesta con su mejor color. Al viento las campanas dirán que ya eres mía y locas las fontanas me contarán tu amor. La noche que me quieras desde el azul del cielo, las estrellas celosas nos mirarán pasar y un rayo misterioso hará nido en tu pelo, luciérnaga curiosa que verá...¡que eres mi consuelo!

Recitado: El día que me quieras no habrá más que armonías, será clara la aurora y alegre el manantial. Traerá quieta la brisa rumor de melodías y nos darán las fuentes su canto de cristal. El día que me quieras endulzará sus cuerdas el pájaro cantor, florecerá la vida, no existirá el dolor. La noche que me quieras desde el azul del cielo, las estrellas celosas nos mirarán pasar y un rayo misterioso hará nido en tu pelo, luciérnaga curiosa que verá...¡que eres mi consuelo!