The late 1930s were a transitional period in tango, marked by the rise of the hard-hitting D’Arienzo band and the explosion of dancing as the center of popular culture. The tango songbook was changing too, to keep up with the new musical style. The first wave of lyrics, portraying picturesque characters and voicing social criticism, was simplifying and turning inward, to reflect more everyday emotional situations and a psychology of common experience.
The lyricist who connected with this moment perhaps more than any other was Francisco Gorrindo. The string of hits he authored in the second half of the ’30s found the magic formula for a kind of everyman tango: his lines speak with the street-level grit of earlier songs, but leave behind their fictional world and caricatures to look through the eyes of the audience. The result is a group of songs, like the 1937 hit “Paciencia,” which fueled the new, brisk, uptempo sound of the era, and which people embraced from the dance floor. They are tangos like before, but this time as they sing the ironies of truth and loss, they look up and deliver them with a different undertone—a sound of strength.
Let’s Face It
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Alberto Echagüe (orq. Juan D’Arienzo)
Last night once again, my two eyes fell upon you;
Last night once again, you were near me at last.
Why should I have seen you, if when it’s all over
We’re just two strangers, admiring the past?
You’re hardly the same now, I’m not the same either,
The years pass… and life does… Who knows what to say!
For once and for all, then, it’s best to speak frankly,
You and I, we can’t just… relive yesterday.
Let’s face it…
That’s life, in the end.
We looked to each other
As egoists merely,
And as egoists clearly
We saw our divisions.
What’s there to pretend?
Let’s face it…
That’s life, in the end.
The fault lies with no one,
If there’s fault to be given;
And that’s why, on parting,
My hand in the silence
Held steady, my friend.
We’ll have to account for it all as a daydream,
Denying we each sought the other one out;
That way we’ll be left with the nice consolation,
To go on believing we’re still the same now.
I still have a picture from when you were twenty,
When in the old hood you were sunshine galore.
I want to see you always as pretty as back then:
What happened last night, was a dream, nothing more.
Paciencia (1937)
Music: Juan D’Arienzo
Lyrics: Francisco Gorrindo
Anoche, de nuevo te vieron mis ojos;
anoche, de nuevo te tuve a mi lao.
¡Pa qué te habré visto si, después de todo,
fuimos dos extraños mirando el pasao!
Ni vos sos la misma, ni yo soy el mismo…
¡Los años!… ¡La vida!… ¡Quién sabe lo qué!...
De una vez por todas mejor la franqueza:
yo y vos no podemos volver al ayer.
Paciencia…
La vida es así.
Quisimos juntarnos
por puro egoísmo
y el mismo egoísmo
nos muestra distintos.
¿Para qué fingir?
Paciencia…
La vida es así.
Ninguno es culpable,
si es que hay una culpa.
Por eso, la mano
que te di en silencio
no tembló al partir.
Haremos de cuenta que todo fue un sueño,
que fue una mentira habernos buscao;
así, buenamente, nos queda el consuelo
de seguir creyendo que no hemos cambiao.
Yo tengo un retrato de aquellos veinte años
cuando eras del barrio el sol familiar.
Quiero verte siempre linda como entonces:
lo que pasó anoche fue un sueño no más.