“La chacarera” must be one of Biagi’s most danceable tango classi.. “wait, what? But Lucas, are you translating folklore now??? I did NOT sign up for this!”

No, dear reader, as confusing as it sounds, the tango called La chacarera actually has nothing to do with the Argentine folklore dance called “chacarera”, or maybe I should say, it has only little to do with it. The word chacarera as used in this tango refers to someone from the countryside, specifically someone working on a farm, in this case a woman, because of the -a ending of the word. Which of these two meanings came first is a bit of a chicken and egg problem, because there seems to be little documentation on the subject. However, the word ‘chacarera’ in itself seems to have come from Quecha, the language family of the native peoples of the Andes, and it has the same connotations of farm and labor, so I would say the dance was probably named after the kind of rural population that danced it.

Now, you might start to wonder what all this talk about the countryside has to do with tango, which is quintessentially the folk song of the big city, the urban musical heritage of Buenos Aires. Well, even though tango should indeed be regarded as the folklore of Buenos Aires, a sizeable proportion of this genre is actually dedicated to Argentina’s vast interior, with themes such as the gaucho, certain typical birds and the beautiful landscapes of the pampas (and far beyond). We can also see this reflected in the tango I am presenting to you today: the protagonist of the lyric is obsessed with a pretty girl he often sees wandering on the farms or on the fields, but alas, she won’t love him back. I personally really enjoy the many references in tango music to (a somewhat idealized version of) countryside life, because Argentina is more than just Buenos Aires and those lyrics make me cherish my memories of seeing this beautiful country.

Now that you understand a bit of context behind this song, I would like to dedicate a few words to a strange phenomenon in tango music that we can see reflected here. A few lyrics have historically been altered because of government censorship or simply under the pressure of societal morals, and these lyrics were often about morally complicated topics such as prostitution and alcohol. La chacarera is a good example of this: this relatively old tango, from the early 1920s, (note: the Biagi version is from 1940!) has both an original and censored version, and the censored version, as translated below, seems like a relatively innocent tale of unrequited love. However, in the original version, the protagonist asks the farm girl why she won’t love him a little bit too […] since she already brings everyone to her bedroom anyway (paraphrashed by me). It’s quite likely that the country girl mentioned was a prostitute somewhere in Buenos Aires, but with rural origins, as there was a lot of migration in those times.

For one, I hope that this shows you how things in the world of tango lyrics are not always how they seem. I do have to stress that in contrast, most lyrics actually DON’T have some kind of hidden meaning, but La chacarera is a great example of when they do.

La chacarera (Country girl)
Lyrics: Juan Andrés Caruso
Music: Juan Maglio/José Servidio

Chacarera, chacarera.
Chacarera de mi amor,
si te pido que me quieras
no me contestes que no.
Chacarera, chacarera,
no me hagas más sufrir,
si querés tanto a la vida,
Quereme un poquito a mi.

Country girl, country girl,
country girl whom I love,
if I ask you to love me back,
don’t tell me ‘no’.
Country girl, country girl,
don’t make me suffer anymore,
since you already love life so much,
why not love me just a little bit too?

(Chacarerita, chacarerita
que por los campos vas vaporosa,
chacarerita de ojos de fuego
de labios frescos como una rosa,
chacarerita tan linda y graciosa,
que en busca de flores al campo te vas,
chacarerita tu linda boquita,
tu linda boquita quisiera besar.)

(Sweet country girl, sweet country girl,
you walk through the fields like a spirit,
sweet country girl with your fiery eyes
and lips fresh like a rose.
Country girl, so pretty and graceful,
gathering flowers in the fields,
sweet country girl with your lovely mouth,
with sweet lips that I want to kiss.)

(Chacarerita que vas
Siempre sutil,
siempre gentil
y simpática.
Chacarerita que estás
llena de amor,
como una flor
enigmática.
Mi linda chacarerita
tené de mi compasión,
pues nadie podrá adorarte
tanto, tanto como te adoro yo.)

(Sweet country girl, you’re
always gentle,
always kind,
and understanding.
Sweet country girl,
full of love,
like a mysterious flower.
My beautiful country girl,
take pity on me,
since nobody could ever adore you
as much as I adore you.)

(Chacarera, chacarera.
Chacarera buena moza,
que vas siempre entre las flores
igual que una mariposa.
Chacarera, chacarera.
No me hagas más sufrir,
si querés tanto a la vida,
quereme un poquito a mi.)

(Country girl, country girl,
pretty country girl,
always wandering among the flowers,
like a butterfly.
Country girl, country girl,
don’t make me suffer anymore,
since you already love life so much,
why not love me just a little bit too?)

(Chacarerita, chacarerita,
chacarerita me tenés loco,
chacarerita no seas tan mala
chacarerita quereme un poco.
Chacarerita tan linda y graciosa,
que en busca de flores al campo te vas,
chacarerita tu linda boquita
tu linda boquita dejame besar.)

(Sweet country girl, sweet country girl,
sweet country girl, I’m crazy about you,
sweet country girl, don’t be so mean,
sweet country girl, love me a little bit too.
Sweet country girl, so pretty and graceful,
gathering flowers in the fields,
sweet country girl with your lovely mouth,
let me kiss your sweet lips.)

Romeo Gavioli is mostly known as Donato’s high-pitched male singer, who really shines in some of that orchestra’s most iconic, lyrical songs, such as Mi serenata and Amando en silencio, and my personal favorite, the lesser-known version of Mendocina (a vals mostly known in its Laurenz rendition). In the past, I always strongly preferred Horacio Lagos’ voice, a deeper voice that is much more prolific in Donato’s recordings, and while I am still glad Lagos’s robust, perhaps more accessible voice was prioritized, his voice can also sound a bit superficial at times. In contrast, I think Gavioli has a sweet, emotional and very sensitive quality to his singing, and it’s like an acquired taste to me that I appreciate more and more as time goes by.

A few years ago, when I had an obsession for a while with the tango Pregonera by De Angelis, I stumbled upon a rare version that was surprisingly good and I ended up liking it more than the original. Some tango dancers who read this may not be aware, but Gavioli was not only a singer, but also a musician (violin), and after leaving Donato’s orchestra in 1943, he went on to found his own band in his native Uruguay. This happened during what was still the height of the Golden Age of tango music, and that’s reflected in the musical style of the orchestra: we can hear a type of music that’s geared towards the dancers, just like Argentina’s big orchestras in those years.

That’s a bit surprising, considering that there was often a tension between the ambitions of singers and the ambitions of orchestra leaders, as the singers wanted to shine like a soloist, just as Gardel once did, while the musicians wanted a singer to blend into the (danceable) sound of an orchestra. This meant that popular singers would often abandon these orchestras, even the best ones, to pursue a career of a soloist, forming their own orchestra or simple band of guitar players simply to back them up and give them a musical “background” for their voice to shine. However, Gavioli’s orchestra doesn’t entirely follow this pattern: even though he was the one and only ‘star’ of the orchestra, giving his own voice ample space as probably the single biggest attraction in the music, the orchestra’s sound is still quite danceable and his singing is not as overbearing as in the usual tangos meant for listening.

(Want to know more? If you’d like to understand some background behind ‘tango canción’, the kind of music most soloists were striving for, you can find out more in this post. Also, I’ve previously written a blog about Roberto Flores, who also combined becoming a soloist singer with successfully leading an orchestra of danceable tango music.)

We could spend some more time looking at the ins and outs of Gavioli’s orchestra, but due to the constraints of these short blogs, let’s focus on why I like this orchestra’s version of Pregonera so much. I personally think there’s an emotional intensity to this version that’s unmatched by the versions of De Angelis and D’Arienzo, which has a lot to do with Gavioli’s way of singing that I described above as having a ‘sweet, emotional and very sensitive’ quality.
But there’s also something peculiar going on in the orchestration of this particular version: usually, the third and last parts of a tango lyric are not sung in the recordings of the big dance orchestras, but here, it’s put on center stage because the order becomes (strangely) reversed. The first half of the first stanza is used as some sort of slow intro in the beginning, but then the actual main singing (around 1 minute and 10 seconds in) starts with the full third stanza, and that part of the lyrics is quite emotional and melancholic, and some of these lines get repeated at the end of the song. Lastly, the slow, dramatic introduction and ending also play their part in the overall emotional intensity of this version.

All in all, I think you might understand how this song may come as a pleasant surprise to some of my followers, considering how little-known Gavioli’s orchestra is. Of course, his band’s sound is no match for the best Argentine orchestras like Troilo, D’Arienzo and Di Sarli, but it still sounds decent and many people are already familiar with and fond of Gavioli’s voice, due to his contribution to some of Donato’s finest recordings.

Note: the parentheses in the lyric below show the part that remains unsung in this version. I decided to maintain the original order of the lines here, because it will help you understand the ‘story’ of the lyric. In the subtitle video you will notice the order that Gavio chose instead.

Pregonera (Flower seller)
Lyrics: José Rótulo
Composition: Alfredo de Angelis

Princesita rubia de marfil
dueña de mi sueño juvenil,
la que pregonando flores
un día de abril,
recuerdo por las calles de París.
(“Una rosa roja para usted,
roja como el ansia de querer,
rosas y claveles blancos,
blancos de ilusión”
y sigue la princesa su pregón.)

Blonde princess of alabaster skin,
mistress of my youthful dreams…
she whom I remember, one April day,
selling flowers on the streets of Paris.
(“A red rose for you,
red like the desire to love…
roses and white carnations,
white like a dream of hope…”
and so my princess, calling out, passes by.)

“Un cariño y un clavel
para el ojal, para el querer.”
El clavel es de ilusión,
mi corazón rojo punzó.
Ay, la tarde va muriendo,
y el pregón me va siguiendo.
“Un cariñito y un clavel”
sólo el clavel, lo que quedó.

“A caress and a carnation,
for your jacket, for love.”
A carnation for hope,
for my yearning heart.
And as the evening fades,
her cry still follows me.
“A caress and a carnation!”
now, only the carnation remains.

Princesita rubia de marfil,
dónde fue tu risa tan sutil,
junto con tus flores muertas
muere mi ilusión.
Y escucho el eco tenue de tu voz.
Es como un susurro sin cesar,
que va despertando mi ansiedad,
es mi fantasía loca
que vuelve a soñar.
De nuevo soy feliz con tu cantar.

Blonde princess of alabaster skin,
what has become of your subtle laugh?
Along with your dead flowers
my hope dies too.
But as I hear the faint echo of your voice,
like a ceaseless whisper,
it awakens a feeble hope.
It’s my infatuation…
making me dream again.
Your song… making me happy again.

Until a few years ago in my tango career, I mostly preferred listening to tangos about lost love and similar topics of sorrow. Even though the (rich) landscape of tango lyrics is quite varied in themes, I’d still say, based on no serious statistical research at all but just my experience as a DJ, that a majority of the lyrics are about heartbreak (predominantly) and a few other forms of grief. These feelings and experiences are universal and they are expressed in musical genres worldwide, so in a sense, a lot of tango music is far from unique, and at the same time, that also explains its broad appeal.

However, tango also offers us many lyrics that are, in a way, less universal and more firmly embedded in Buenos Aires and its culture – I always call tango “the folklore of Buenos Aires”, and I’m becoming increasingly enamored with all the signs in our music that you can find of that unique cultural world. That is not to say I wasn’t interested in that background before, but it feels like I am going through a transition toward those themes becoming even more important to me than the dominant heartache category mentioned earlier. It might be a maturation of taste leading me into a new direction, or possibly a sign that I am looking for even further depth in how I experience tango music and how it was embedded in a specific historical context during its Golden Age.

The song I chose to translate for you this time is called ‘Chirusa’, and it’s an excellent example of different elements of tango’s backdrop of an exciting city full of immigrants and the opportunities of their promised land. Even though the numbers of immigrants were so massive and overpowering that they changed that land and culture to a great extent, we also have to take into account that there were already ‘natives’ living there who inherited the traditions of colonial times and a young post-colonial, independent Argentina. Tango lyrics often refer to poor outskirts of the city, and it weren’t always only European immigrants living there, but also the already existing population (‘criollos’) of partly mixed descent, including not only descendants of Spanish settlers and Native Americans (I am referring to America as the American continent here, the Americas) but even descendants of African slaves, who have an interesting, somewhat mysterious history I unfortunately cannot elaborate on this time, considering the restraints of these short blogs.

Anyway, I left the title in this translation untranslated, but in fact ‘chirusa’ is a lunfardo word with a bunch of different connotations: it first of all refers to a poor woman, so someone of a low social class and with probably no education, and then, second, it’s connected with the interior of Argentina/the countryside, just like the word ‘china’ that is often referred to in lyrics about gauchos and life in rural areas. And third, there’s a connotation of ‘vulgar’ or a lack of morals, which to me sounds like an euphemism for prostitution. Certainly, the lyric below combines these three elements: a poor girl from the outskirts of Buenos Aires is seduced by a Casanova-like type and follows him to the city center, where he abandons her and she ends up in prostitution. This most likely refers to a type of higher-class prostitution in milongas where those women would work as taxi dancers and were also sexually available for rich men. I draw that conclusion because there are several lyrics alluding to that odd phenomenon – how some women could lead a ‘modern’ urban lifestyle but at the expense of paying for it with their bodies – and it’s likely also the ‘luxury’ that is referred to in the lyric below.

This type of lyrics is also a little weird, especially considering our modern-day standards about gender and sexuality, because they seem to morally condemn these women while also maybe praising them at the same time, for a lifestyle that is convenient for certain men but awful for these women themselves. However, this type of lyric is still representative of some dark aspects of the culture of Buenos Aires at the time, probably especially in the 1920s from what I can remember, and also combines other typical elements of tango culture, like the glorification of the ‘arrabal’, the poor neighborhood of origin. So, while I feel a bit ambiguous about the somewhat misogynist or at least awkward tone in its lyric, ‘Chirusa’ is still very helpful for us to imagine the ‘folklore’ of the Buenos Aires portrayed in tango lyrics, and certainly, the D’Arienzo version from 1940 is just an absolute banger and one of my favorite tracks ever.

I once made a long video about this exact song with more details about several themes discussed above and the D’Arienzo orchestra at the time. If you like the song and have too much free time, give it a watch.

Chirusa
Composition: Juan D’Arienzo
Lyrics: Nolo López

Chirusa, la más linda de las pebetas,
tejía sus amores con un Don Juan;
él, con palabras buenas y cariñosas,
le prometió quererla con mucho afán.
Confiada en sus promesas, una mañana
ató toda su ropa y se fugó;
cegada por el lujo siguió la caravana
y el alma del suburbio le gritó:

Chirusa, the prettiest of all the girls,
became infatuated with a real Don Juan.
With flattery and tender words
he promised to love her with mad desire.
Believing his promises, one morning
she gathered up her clothes and ran away.
Blinded by luxury, she followed him to the city
while the soul of her poor neighbourhood lamented:

‘¡No dejes a tus viejos!
Cuidado che, Chirusa;
el lujo es el demonio
que causa perdición,
y cuando estés muy sola
sin una mano amiga
has de llorar de pena
tirada en un rincón.’

‘Don’t leave your old folks behind!
Be careful, Chirusa,
luxury is a demon
that will ruin you.
And once you are all alone
without a helping hand,
you will cry with sorrow,
curled up in a corner.’

(Hastiada de la vida, sin un consuelo,
vencida para siempre por el dolor,
pensaba en sus viejitos que dejo un día
en la casita blanca donde nació.)
El viento le traía dulces recuerdos,
pasajes de su vida llenos de sol;
y el alma del suburbio, hasta su pieza,
como una voz lejana le recordó…

(Tired of a life without solace,
forever defeated by sorrow,
she thought of her parents that she had one day
left behind in the little white house where she was born.)
The wind carried back sweet memories,
scenes of life, full of sunshine,
and the soul of her neighbourhood, like a faint echo,
brought it all back to her room…:

Music about heartbreak, sadness and longing is something we see across cultures and around the world, and the genre of tango is no exception: often, the lyrics talk about these realities of life in their different forms, but without any particular (historical) context and without anything thematic that would set it apart from other genres. However, tango music and lyrics do have their distinctive character as, like I always say, the folklore of Buenos Aires as a city and culture. That means you also have lyrics that are quite specifically about certain traditions or characteristics of the city, about places or types of characters dwelling the streets, and also often about the bohemian lifestyle of nightclubs and tango dance halls.

The orchestra of Ángel D’Agostino, usually referred to as D’Agostino-Vargas because the orchestra and singer are so uniquely inseparable, is one of the richest orchestras in terms of the different ”landscapes” of that exciting Buenos Aires from the past. In general, the orchestra sound is deeply nostalgic and always transports me not only to the typical streets and corners of the city but particularly to how I imagine they were in the era this music was recorded. And less metaphysically, perhaps, it’s quite possibly (just guessing here) the orchestra with the most lyrics about life in Buenos Aires and other concrete historical, cultural phenomena connected to it. It’s important to realize that a sizeable amount of these stories and anecdotes refer to even older times that were looked at with nostalgia and a sense of loss by the musicians and lyricists of the Golden Age of tango music and even earlier.

The lyric below is a reflection of not only the more universal themes of lost love or sorrow about life in tango but also some of the cultural themes that I mentioned above. First, it refers to an extremely important topic in tango lyrics, namely the distant neighborhoods, usually poor, on the outskirts of the city, that are often looked at with nostalgia (like a type of ‘innocent’ life from the past) or a current longing to return to said areas. These ‘suburbs’ (sometimes literally called ‘suburbio’) tend to be called ‘arrabal’ in the lyrics and host a number of archetypal figures, such as the tough guys who dominated the streets or the virtuous local girls who ended up as a prostitute in the city center. And the second ‘trope’ we see in this lyric is the bohemian lifestyle of the tango world in Buenos Aires: the main character has returned to his poor neighborhood and is now lonely because of the life he chose to live in that bohemian environment. I think this lyric, and the way the orchestra brings it to life in the recording (notice how the bandoneons complement the singing!), are a beautiful representation of the melancholy of tango through its typical scenes and ‘landscapes’ and how the protagonist experiences them.

Notas de bandoneón (Notes of a bandoneon)
Composition: Orestes Cúfaro and/or Francisco de Lorenzo
Lyrics: Enrique Cadícamo

Tengo en un barrio apartado
una casita chiquita
refugio para mis cuitas
de calavera olvidado.
Solo, sin nadie a mi lado
sin un cariño quedé.
Porque de tanto que amé
sin un amor me he quedado.

In a distant neighbourhood
I have a little house,
a shelter for my sorrows,
for having been a womaniser.
Alone, with no one by my side,
I am left without affection.
For as much as I have loved,
I have been left without a love.

Llegan notas de bandoneón
en la noche de mi arrabal
son las notas de un corazón
que al pasar, el viento trae…
Llegan notas de bandoneón
y es más negra mi soledad.
Llueve en mi alma su triste son
y hace florecer mi honda emoción.

Notes of a bandoneon sound
in the night of my barrio.
They are notes of a heart,
carried by the wind.
Notes of a bandoneon sound
and my loneliness becomes darker still.
The sad sound raining in my soul
makes my deep emotion flourish.

(Por eso en mi noche triste
sólo… más viejo y cansado,
recuerdo muy apenado
lo mucho que me quisiste.
Sabiendo que te perdiste
yo vivo evocándote,
y sueño esperándote
aquí, en mi barrio apartado.)

(And so, in my sad night,
alone, now old and tired,
I remember sadly
how much you loved me.
Knowing that I lost you,
I live remembering you,
while I dream of your return
here, in this distant neighborhood.)

“Alberto Gómez? Who….??”
Many tango dancers are not necessarily familiar with some of the most important singers in tango history. Whether it’s Charlo, Ignacio Corsini, Ada Falcón or even pretty much the first ever tango singer, Carlos Gardel, these are all names that escape most people’s attention nowadays. However, that’s not strange considering how little they are connected to the actual music we dance to – maybe apart from some older orchestra tunes that are cherished particularly by certain DJs, collectors and crowds of dancers. In these older tunes, we can hear some of these famous singers, like Charlo and Alberto Gómez, sing a refrain within a song meant for dancing, yes, just a refrain and nothing else. However, many others who sang these refrains for the orchestras never reached the same level of status. And we also have to realize that in most of the more sophisticated music of the Golden Age, even those famous names are all absent, and their ‘place’ is taken by mostly a new generation instead.

“But Lucas! How did they become famous, then?”
That’s a good question. The key here is that tango singing and dance music always had a problematic relationship, because the ambitions of orchestras and singers often collided. From its inception until its decline, the tango genre attracted many people who wanted to shine as a soloist, following the original example of Gardel, and many became popular with their listeners this way. We have many recordings of singers who are simply accompanied by guitars or an entire orchestra for their voices to shine, and this subgenre is usually referred to as ‘tango canción’ (‘tango song’). Even in the middle of the Golden Age, singers routinely abandoned the best orchestras we know because they wanted to go solo and be in complete control of the music they created. For dancers nowadays, singing with Di Sarli or Troilo may seem like an immense honor, and to a large extent it was, but there was certainly more to be attained for a popular performer. Or at least it seemed, because while some of these men who became soloists did reach the prime of their career alone, others saw their career decline, and in some cases it’s not easy for us to determine what truly happened, because of a lack of recordings or historical sources.

(British accent) “But Lucas, you must be mad! Why on earth would you create an entire video just for a song not a single dancer ever cares about?”
Well, Alberto Gómez is one of the great, prolific solo singers, and I think it’s really nice sometimes to listen to dance classics from another angle and with voices that were popular and influential back in the day. These singers followed trends among the orchestras, but also the other way around, which means there are dance classics that were inspired by people outside of the orchestras. And in any case: because I understand Spanish, I can always listen to whatever renditions I want, but many of the visitors of my website have to rely on translations. While I generally think it’s more ‘useful’ to present translations of popular tracks, I also think it’s good to stimulate people to understand tango history a bit better and also get to explore the less obvious repertoire out there. Lastly, tango lyrics often have ‘unsung’ parts that are worth the attention but are easily overlooked, and the tango soloists tend to sing the entire lyric or at least a big part of it. All of these reasons are why I choose to present to you, in this case, a nice tango canción that may help you to appreciate the more famous Fresedo version in a different light.

Isla de Capri (Isle of Capri) – sung by Alberto Gómez
Composition: Will Grosz
Lyrics: Miguel Ángel del Valle

Yo tuve un amor,
sueño embriagador,
en una isla de Capri.
Paisaje azul
rebosante de luz.
Mi canción de amor
dulce desgrané
en el perfume de Capri
y mi querer
en sus ojos canté.

I once had a love,
an intoxicating dream,
on the Isle of Capri.
A blue landscape,
of dazzling light.
I sweetly declared
my song of love
in fragrant Capri,
as I sang my adoration
to her eyes.

Labios de miel que besaron mis labios,
ojos de sol que me hicieron soñar
y en la emoción de sus besos tan sabios
desglosaba mi alma un cantar.
Y así, los dos por senderos de dicha,
bajo ese cielo radiante de amor
vivimos juntos un suave romance
que duró lo que dura una flor…
¿Y dónde estarás ahora
acordándote de mí?
Mientras mi querer te llora
vuela mi ilusión hacia ti.

Honey lips that kissed my lips,
sun bright eyes, making me dream…
and in the ardour of her knowing kisses
my soul broke into a song.
And so, together on pathways of bliss,
under a radiant sky of love,
we enjoyed a sweet romance
that only lasted as long as a flower.
And… where are you now,
thinking of me?
While my love cries for you,
my hope flies to your side.
my emotions fly to your side.

(Labios de miel que besaron mis labios,
ojos de sol que me hicieron soñar
y en la emoción de sus besos tan sabios
desglosaba mi alma un cantar.
No puedo olvidar
horas que viví
en una isla de Capri…
Cuánta emoción
desbordó mi canción,
ansias de vivir
dulce recordar
de gratas horas pasadas
y revivir
en un beso un cantar.)

(Honey lips that kissed my lips,
sun bright eyes, making me dream…
and in the ardour of her knowing kisses
my soul broke into a song.
I shall never forget
those days I spent
on the Isle of Capri.
My singing overflowed
with such strong emotion,
a yearning to live.
It’s sweet to remember
those pleasant times
and to relive
a song in a kiss.)