The famous Tango poet, Enrique Santos Discepolo who lived from 1901-1951, captures tangos multidimensional quality with his famous quote, [inaudible] which means Tango is a sad thought that is danced. Most tango lyrics capture themes of sadness, nostalgia and romantic drama, usually a jilted male. These dimensions of Tango poetry however, are usually lost outside of the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, most "Tango for Export" only includes instrumental arrangements, and most foreigners don't even know about this aspect of the art form. But in Buenos Aires, Portenos always associate Tangos with words, even instrumental versions of Tango songs. Many milonguero has sang along while dancing with me in the milongas, gently in my ear. Melody and lyrics are married as in any other kind of vocal form. In the first decade of the 1900s, Tango incorporated words and emphasis on melody. These early texts were usually associated with stock characters such as the compadrito that urbanized the young Hoodlum of Buenos Aires slums. The Milonguita or prostitutes and the ideal mother. Themes in early tango songs usually revolved around misfortunes in love, sadness of the poor immigrant, and a hostile new world and escape to the brothels and cabarets. Any discussion of tango lyrics must consider a slang peculiar to Buenos Aires called, lunfardo, which in double meaning, elements of the Italian language and made up words. Lunfardo occurs in many tango lyrics. For example, the tango titled, Shusheta is a lunfardo word that means a dandy, a compadrito. The original lyrics to Shusheta written in 1934 were banned in 1943 due to the use of lunfardo and references to brothels and pimps. The next year, the author Enrique Cadicamo rewrote the lyrics of Shusheta and renamed it as [inaudible]. To retain more of a tone down theme of a dandy, Porteño still often slip into lunfardo in Buenos Aires today. Tango poets and singers refined the tango cancion in the 1920s and '30s. Two important figures include the poet Pascual Contursi and the great singer Carlos Gardel. Pascual Contursi born in 1888 and died in 1932 was the first real tango lyricist who added words to existing tangos. Although most of us characters or from the brothels he infused them with intense human emotions. His poetry went beyond simple character descriptions to intense passion as in his lyrics to the tango Mi Noche Triste which means, My Sad Night. In this famous tango cancion, the words recount a man's misfortune, his interaction with the woman. They dramatize the man's intense emotion, and lament the man's fate. The great tango singer Carlos Gardel was the first to record Mi Noche Triste in 1917. This recording launched his career. Gardel became the first real tango icon through live performances, recordings, radio, and films. He toured abroad throughout South America, Spain, France and the US where he made four films for Paramount in New York. He died tragically in 1935 when his plane crashed in MedellÃn during take-off. Listen to the first stanza of Gardel's recording of Mi Noche Triste. It begins with the word, percanta, which is a lunfardo word for woman but it also subtly refers to a prostitute. The other lunfardo words are in boldface type, percanta [inaudible]. Many tango poets in the Golden Age wrote about social reality in addition to the established tango themes of sadness, nostalgia, and betrayal. As one of the greatest tango poets of the golden age, Homero Manzi born in 1907 and died in 1951, used metaphors and images to create tender sympathy for ordinary yet tragic characters. In his lyrics for the famous romantic tango cancio Malena written in 1941, Manzi captures the beauty and tragedy of his character Malena and illustrates the unhappy life of a milonguita, a fallen woman. What's more, the words directly linked Malena's pain to the sadness of the sound of the bandoneon with the recurring line "Malena tiene pena de bandoneón", which means Malena has the pain of the bandoneón. In the first stanza, Manzi describes Malena's sad voice and provides poetic references to Buenos Aires suburbs where tango originally came from. It's full of sadness, alcohol and nostalgia. He writes, "Malena [inaudible] Malena [inaudible] Malena [inaudible] The tango cancion tradition with its emphasis on the declamation of the texts continues in Buenos Aires today. They're Uruguayan poet Horacio Ferrer born in 1933 and just recently passed away in 2014 was one of the most prominent tango authors in contemporary times. He collaborated with Astro Piazzolla on such famous works such as tango operita, Maria de Buenos Aires in 1968, and their tango cancion Balada para un loco in 1969 means Ballad for somebody who's crazy, in a good way crazy. In this song, Ferrera takes text declamation to the ultimate extreme with the use of pure recitation. Listen to the opening stanza where he paints surreal images of Buenos Aires and a man's fantastical flight with a lover. [inaudible].
