Homero Expósito’s lyrics for the 1943 tango “Percal” offer a fine example of how tangos “talk to each other” across the decades. The impressionistic story in the song blossoms out of a single word—percale, the smooth cotton weave used for modest dresses in the early 1900s. That was also the poignant last word of the famous tango “Milonguita,” whose opening phrase this song echoes, along with its final scene of the young woman crying in the city. The new song retells the old story from a fresh, interior perspective, weaving its magic with different imagery to enact a more association-laden drama of objects. The fateful music by Domingo Federico makes the most of Expósito’s evocation of a symbol-haunted psyche.
Percale
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Alberto Podestá (orq. Miguel Caló)
Percale…
Do you remember the percale?
You had fifteen Aprils in you,
A wish to suffer and to love,
To go downtown, and to prevail,
And leave behind the percale.
Percale…
The pathway of percale…
You ran away from home,
Perhaps we heard the story wrong.
I just know that in the end
You got away from the percale.
Now youth has gone away…
Your house is there no more…
And in that yesterday behind us
Lying cast aside,
All terrified,
Are your percale and my past.
Now youth has gone away…
I hold out hopes no more…
It’s best to leave as lost
The wish that never was
And the old dress of percale.
To cry…
What makes you want to cry?…
Did you somehow not live,
Did you not learn to love,
And to suffer, and to hope,
And then fall quiet too?
Percale…
They’re just things of percale…
To know that now you suffer,
To know there’s more ahead—
To know that in the end
You didn’t leave the percale.
Percale…
The sorrows of percale.
Percal (1943)
Music: Domingo Federico
Lyrics: Homero Expósito
Percal…
¿Te acuerdas del percal?
Tenias quince abriles,
anhelos de sufrir y amar,
de ir al centro, triunfar
y olvidar el percal.
Percal…
Camino del percal,
te fuiste de tu casa…
Tal vez nos enteramos mal.
Sólo sé que al final
te olvidaste el percal.
La juventud se fue…
Tu casa ya no está…
Y en el ayer tirados
se han quedado
acobardados
tu percal y mi pasado.
La juventud se fue…
Yo ya no espero más…
Mejor dejar perdidos
los anhelos que no han sido
y el vestido de percal.
Llorar…
¿Por qué vas a llorar?…
¿Acaso no has vivido,
acaso no aprendiste a amar,
a sufrir, a esperar,
y también a callar?
Percal…
Son cosas del percal…
Saber que estás sufriendo
saber que sufrirás aún más
y saber que al final
no olvidaste el percal.
Percal…
Tristezas del percal.