With the 1924 hit “Suerte loca,” Francisco García Jiménez showed how well a tango could work with clever extended metaphor, and elevated the genre into cerebral territory that only witty poetry occupied at the time. Known as a writer of refinement, García Jiménez found his peak in the 1920s, and forever set his mark on the tango songbook with memorable songs like this one. Accompanying the shrewdly streetwise lyrics and their card table allegory—dealing obliquely with the familiar theme of lost love—is a catchy tune by the poet’s frequent songwriting partner Anselmo Aieta, the bandoneonist with whom he authored a number of other tangos. (For a little perspective on how innovative “Suerte loca” was at the time, the duo’s hit song Alma en pena was to come some four years later!)
Note: The word boca in the second line refers to what comes off the dealer’s deck. (Similarly, cards boca abajo are “face down.”) While the metaphor continues throughout the song, it is not specific enough to indicate a particular type of game such as truco or poker.
Crazy Luck
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Charlo (1928) | Armando Moreno (1941)
In the card game of life
I often can guess the card that gets dealt me,
And hear them say at my side
It’s only because some crazy luck helped me.
Luck is all they ever name it!
I learned by watching them cheat me,
And now they won’t ever beat me
Until they get Death to game it.
In the card game of life,
In order to win, I first had to lose.
I, too, played my early hands
Still trusting in the blindness of chance,
And came to see that it’s all just a lie,
And the winnings fall to the crookedest guy…
You think I’m wrong… It costs you your heart!
How sure you are!… Don’t you see you can’t guess?
That when you bet on the cards of your hopes
The cards of your woe are the ones that you get?
Don’t envy me for being wise,
For what you see is disappointment plenty…
And if you keep on losing blind,
It’s just because you’re in your pretty twenties…
Hope itself is in the green baize,
And, in spite of all my learning,
If all my losses came returning,
Trust would sink me as in old days…
Crazy luck is to retain
Belief in a hope amid so much pain!
Suerte loca (1924)
Music: Anselmo Aieta
Lyrics: Francisco García Jiménez
En el naipe del vivir
suelo acertar la carta de la boca,
y a mi lado oigo decir
que es porque estoy con una suerte loca.
Al saber le llaman suerte!
Yo aprendí viendo trampearme,
y ahora sólo han de coparme
cuando banquen con la Muerte.
En el naipe del vivir,
para ganar, primero perdí.
Yo también entré a jugar
confiado en la ceguera del azar
y luego vi que todo era mentir
y el capital en manos del más vil…
No me creés… ¡Te pierde el corazón!
¡Qué fe tenés!… ¿No ves que no acertás?
¿Que si apuntás a cartas de ilusión
son de dolor las cartas que se dan?
No me envidies si me ves
acertador, pues soy el desengaño…
Y si ciego así perdés,
es que tenés los lindos veinte años…
El tapete es la esperanza
y, a pesar de lo aprendido,
si me dan lo que he perdido
vuelve a hundirme la confianza…
¡Suerte loca es conservar
una ilusión en tanto penar!