LA CUMPARSITA - The little marching band (1917)

Music by: G. H. Matos Rodriguez
Lyrics by: Enrique P. Maroni - Pascual Contursi
Translated by: Alberto Paz

Version en castellano

English version

Si supieras que aun dentro de mi alma, conservo aquel cariño que tuve para ti... Quien sabe si supieras que nunca te he olvidado, volviendo a tu pasado te acordaras de mi... Mis amigos ya no vienen ni siquiera a visitarme, nadie viene consolarme en mi afliccion... Desde el dia que te fuiste siento angustias en mi pecho, deci, percanta, que has hecho de mi pobre corazon? Sin embargo, yo siempre te recuerdo con el cariño santo que tuve para ti. Y estas en todas partes, pedazo de mi vida, y aquellos ojos que fueron mi alegria los busco por todas partes y no los puedo hallar. Al cotorro abandonado ya ni el sol de la mañana asoma por la ventana como cuando estabas vos, y aquel perrito compañero que por tu ausencia no comia, al verme solo, el otro dia, tambien me dejo.

If you knew, that still deep in my soul I keep that affection that I had for you... Who knows if you could know that I have never forgotten you, going back into your past, you will remember me... My friends no longer come not even to visit me, nobody wants to console me in my afliction... Since the day that you left, I feel anguish in my chest, say, woman, what have you done with my poor heart? However, I always remember you with the saintly affection that I had for you. And you are everywhere, piece of my life, and those eyes that were my joy I look for them everywhere and I can't find them. To the abandoned pad not even the morning sun peeks through the window like when you were here, and that friendly puppy who because of your absence did not eat, when it saw me all alone, the other day it also left me.

A MEDIA LUZ - At half light

Music by: Edgardo Donato
Lyrics by: Carlos Cesar Lenzi
Translated by: Alberto Paz

Version en castellano

English translation

Corrientes tres cuatro ocho, segundo piso, ascensor; no hay porteros ni vecinos adentro, cocktel y amor. Pisito que puso Maple, piano, estera y velador... un telefon que contesta, una fonola que llora viejos tangos de mi flor, y un gato de porcelana pa que no maulle al amor. Y todo a media luz, que es un brujo el amor, a media luz los besos, a media luz los dos... Y todo a media luz, crepusculo interior, que suave terciopelo la media luz de amor. Juncal doce veinticuatro, telefonea sin temor; de tarde, te con masitas, de noche, tango y amor; los domingos, te danzante, los lunes, desolacion. Hay de todo en la casita: almohadones y divanes como en botica... coco, alfombras que no hacen ruido y mesa puesta al amor...

Corrientes three-four-eight, second floor, elevator There are no doormen nor neighbors. Inside, cocktail and love. Loft furnished by Maple: piano, rug and nightlamp, a telephone that answers, a fonograph that cries old tangos of my flower and a porcelain cat that can't mew the love. And everything at half light that love is a sorcerer... At half light the kisses... At half light the two of us... And all at half light... interior twilight... What a soft velvet the half light of love! Juncal twelve twentyfour Call without fear. On afternoons, tea with pastries; at night, tango and love. On Sundays, tea dancing; on Mondays, emptiness... There is everything in the little house: pillows and sofas; like in a drugstore, coke; carpets muffling the sound and a table set for love.

DESDE EL ALMA - From the soul (1917)

Music by: Rosita Melo
Lyrics by: Homero Manzi and Piuma Velez in 1948
Translated by: Walter Kane

The making of Desde El Alma

by Alberto Paz

Rosita Melo was born in Uruguay in 1903 but she lived in Argentina since 1906. She wrote the music for Desde El Alma, a Boston-style vals, at age 14 in 1917. In 1922 she married poet Victor Piuma Velez who wrote the first set of lyrics for Desde El Alma. It was a theme dedicated to the love of a mother. In 1948, Homero Manzi called to tell them that he was interested in including the song in his movie Pobre mi madre querida, but with different lyrics as demanded by the movie script. This would not affect the copyright ownership of the song. Piuma Velez and Rosita Melo opposed the idea, and requested that if Manzi wrote new lyrics, Piuma Velez's name should be included as co-author. Manzi agreed, the lyrics became famous and the vals, already a classic became universally famous.

The Boston-vals is a style originated in the city of that name in the United States. It is associated with the piano and its characteristic is that the player does not mark the rhythm with the left hand as it is customary with that instrument. The rhythm is marked witht he right hand along with the melody. The left hand only marks the first note of the beat, the bass.

Edited by Valorie Hart

Version en castellano

English translation

Alma, si tanto te han herido ¿Por qué te niegas al olvido? ¿Por qué prefieres llorar lo que has perdido buscar lo que has querido llamar lo que murió? Vives inútilmente triste y sé que nunca mereciste pagar con penas la culpa de ser buena, tan buena como fuiste, por amor. Fue lo que empezó una vez lo que después dejó de ser. Lo que al final, por culpa de un error fue noche amarga del corazón. ¡Deja esas cartas! Vuelve a tu antigua ilusión. Junto al dolor que abre una herida llega la vida, trayendo amor. Vives inútilmente triste y sé que nunca mereciste pagar con penas la culpa de ser buena tan buena como fuiste, por amor.

Soul, if they have hurt you so much Why do you refuse to forget? Why do you prefer to cry for what you've lost to look for what you've wanted to call for what has died? You live needlessly sad and I know that you never deserved to redeem with sorrow the blame of being good, as good as you were, for love. It was what once began what later ceased to be. What at the end, for the fault of a mistake was a bitter night for the heart. Forget those letters! Come back to your old dream. Together with the pain that opens a wound life arrives, bringing love. You live needlessly sad and I know that you never deserved to redeem with sorrow the blame of being good, as good as you were, for love

CAFETIN DE BUENOS AIRES - Small tavern of Buenos Aires (1948)

Music by: Mariano Mores
Lyrics by: Enrique Santos Discepolo
Translated by: Ramon Penalva

A "cafetín" was a small tavern, in the first half of this century. It was the place where the younger and older generations met and developed a tight relationship. Youngsters could learn all those lessons not taught at home and a kind of dismal philosophy about life. All this changed during and after the '60's and those places slowly disappeared from the urban scene.
First stanza: A "cafetín" was a males only place so it was off limits to women and children. The author remembers when as a child he thought it never would come the time when he could get in. It mentions a melancholic sentiment equating the cold of the window pane with his actual feelings and recognize the "cafetín" as the teacher of several things, good and bad, that helped him to grow up.
Second stanza: Now there is a claim of not forgetting this place which was so much alike his mother, a perpetual harbor from all pains and dangers of the world. Then a description of the strange mix of customers and what he learned from them.
Third stanza: Finally he remembers the bunch of buddies he found between those walls and recalls several of them, falling again in a melancholic mood bringing to memory some sad moments in life and his final sense of failure.

Version en castellano

English version

De chiquilín te miraba de afuera (1) como a esas cosas que nunca se alcanzan, la ñata contra el vidrio, (2) en un azul de frío que sólo fue después viviendo igual que el mío. Como una escuela de todas las cosas, ya de muchacho me diste entre asombro el cigarrillo... la fe de mis sueños y una esperanza de amor. ¿Cómo olvidarte en esta queja, cafetín de Buenos Aires? Si sos lo único en la vida que se pareció a mi vieja. (3) En tu mezcla milagrosa de sabihondos y suicidas yo aprendí filosofía... dados... timba (4) y la poesía cruel de no pensar más en mi... Me diste en oro un puñado de amigos, que son los mismos que alientan mis horas; José el de la quimera, Marcial que aún cree y espera y el flaco Abel... que se nos fue, pero aún me guía. Sobre tus mesas que nunca preguntan Lloré una tarde el primer desengaño. Nací a las penas, bebí mis años, y me entregué sin luchar.

In my childhood I stared at you as those things I would never possess the nose against your window in an iced blue feeling that only later, living, was the same in my soul. As a school that teaches all things, in my youth you gave me in wonder a good smoke... a faith in my dreams and a hope for love. How can I forget you in my lament "cafetín de Buenos Aires"? If you are the only one in life who resembled my mother. In your strange association of smart guys and self-killers I learned philosophy... dice... gamble and the bitter poetry of not to think of myself. You gave me in gold a fistful of friends the same who cheer my life and my hours José the one with dreams Marcial who still believes and hopes and skinny Abel... who's gone but still he guides me. On your tables that never ask questions I wept some day my first disillusion I knew of pains, I drank my years And I gave up with no fight.

GLOSSARY:
(1) Chiquilín (diminutive) from "Chico" = small boy, kid
(2) Ñata (f) (colloquial) from "Ñato"(m): pug-nosed or flat-nosed = the nose.
(3) Vieja (coll) literal: old woman = mother
(4) Timba (coll) = the action of playing games for money