For the great satirical lyricist E. S. Discépolo, the song “Uno” always struck me as a turn inward and away from the searing social criticism of his earlier songs like “Yira, yira” and “Cambalache.” And unlike “Tormenta,” a very serious song used for very comic effect in his 1939 film Cuatro corazones, this one is played straight—and it hits hard. “Uno” is a song of existential fatigue, its title representing one—someone, anyone, everyone: the modern individual, reduced to an impersonal pronoun. The sense of its title alone, that mere stroke of genius, or of grammar, says it all: in this world, one goes isolated, alienated… just like everyone else.
It strikes to the heart. It seems so personal. And this is exactly why context matters, and why the origins of these tangos can shed such light on their intended artistic purpose. Sometimes it isn’t enough to know what the words mean: sometimes you have to know what the song means, as a statement unto itself.
The first lady of tango Libertad Lamarque sings this tangazo in the 1943 film El fin de la noche (The End of the Night, dir. Alberto de Zavalía). The movie is an anti-Nazi film, set in occupied Paris. Lamarque, as usual, plays a tango singer: she falls in love with a member of the Resistance; and she gets pressured by a Gestapo officer to infiltrate the Allies in order to save her daughter. The film’s release was naturally delayed by the pro-fascist Argentine government until 1944; but the fact that it was made at all, in the middle of the war, is a powerful gesture. The tone of “Uno,” the emotional core of the film and perhaps of its entire era, may be dead serious; but by that very gravitas, with its focus on the human, Discépolo’s edge of social criticism remains as whetted and as focused as ever.
One (1943)
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Libertad Lamarque (in El fin de la noche)
One goes searching full of expectation
For the path that one was promised
In a dream’s anticipation…
Knowing that the struggle’s cruel and rugged,
Still one struggles through the bloodshed
By the faith of one’s insistence…
One goes dragging through a barbed existence
And in a rush to give one’s love,
Suffers and gets destroyed until one learns:
That one can have no heart left of one’s own…
Penalty exacted for succumbing
To a kiss that’s never coming
Or a love that’s falsely shown…
Unable then to care or shed a tear,
Cheated, alone!
Could I but have the heart again…
(The heart I gave away!…)
Could I but love without a fear,
The same as yesterday…
There’s a chance that when your glances
Mutely shout me their affection,
I would close them with my kisses…
Never thinking their abysses
Those two other eyes, the wicked,
Those that ruined life for me…
Could I but have the heart again…
(The one I lost before!…)
Could I forget that yesterday
It got destroyed, and could I only love you…
I would embrace and weep upon
Your very hopes of love.
God, however, destined me to find you,
Never thinking it’s too late now
And I’ve long run out of sighing…
Leave me here to suffer all the torture
Of one still among the living
Who’s lamenting their own dying…
Goodness that you are, you would have saved
My sense of promise with your love…
One is in one’s sorrows so alone…
One is in one’s pain so very blind…
But a chilling cruelty worse than hatred
—Passion stopping dead in stillness—
Love within its horrid tomb,
Cursed me ever afterward and stole
All of my hope!…
Uno (1943)
Music: Mariano Mores
Lyrics: Enrique Santos Discépolo
Uno busca lleno de esperanzas
el camino que los sueños
prometieron a sus ansias…
Sabe que la lucha es cruel y es mucha,
pero lucha y se desangra
por la fe que lo empecina…
Uno va arrastrándose entre espinas
y en su afán de dar su amor,
sufre y se destroza hasta entender:
que uno se ha quedao sin corazón…
Precio de castigo que uno entrega
por un beso que no llega
o un amor que lo engañó…
¡Vacío ya de amar y de llorar
tanta traición!
Si yo tuviera el corazón…
(¡El corazón que di!…)
Si yo pudiera como ayer
querer sin presentir…
Es posible que a tus ojos
que me gritan tu cariño
los cerrara con mis besos…
Sin pensar que eran como esos
otros ojos, los perversos,
los que hundieron mi vivir.
Si yo tuviera el corazón…
(¡El mismo que perdí!…)
Si olvidara a la que ayer
lo destrozó y pudiera amarte…
me abrazaría a tu ilusión
para llorar tu amor…
Pero, Dios, te trajo a mi destino
sin pensar que ya es muy tarde
y no sabré cómo quererte…
Déjame que llore como aquel
que sufre en vida la tortura
de llorar su propia muerte…
Pura como sos, habrías salvado
mi esperanza con tu amor…
Uno está tan solo en su dolor…
Uno está tan ciego en su penar…
Pero un frío cruel que es peor que el odio
—punto muerto de las almas—
tumba horrenda de mi amor,
¡maldijo para siempre y me robó…
toda ilusión!…