That transitory hour when the night recedes before the first gray light of the morning, known well to those among us who are no strangers to insomnia, is called la madrugada in Spanish, and it features in many tangos as the setting of vague emotions—haunting regret, helpless loss, or a general aimlessness. It is the passage just before dawn, that changing of the guard, so fleeting and yet seemingly eternal, when with time at a standstill as if deciding whether to go on, the stars go dim behind a mist that appears to form out of thin air.
To convey the eerie, early dusk of this setting, I use the phrase “the dark of the morning” (which also appears in “Milonguita”). Cátulo Castillo captures the dreamlike uncertainty of this hour, in the visionary scenery of his tango “La madrugada.” As in “Tinta roja,” the images here pass in a stream of vivid impressions, conveying mood and place while conjuring up an aura of personal history. The song remains deliberately vague—voicing a sense of lost memory, an intangible drive or desire that lurks somewhere in the fog.
The Dark of the Morning
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Carlos Bermudez (orq. Pedro Laurenz)
Night goes spinning around the hours
Upon the dismal, sleepless
Clock-face in the tower.
A streetcar’s phantom trundles groaning,
And wears a bluish pallor
Upon its lonesome roaming…
And a ghostly mist of morning
In shadow fine as powder
Swathes the dim café.
Fading, the night meanders moaning,
Don’t know what I’m after…
Don’t know… my way…
Is it that saddened and distant Margot, who was
A shaft of light in my darkness?
Is it what once was her window?
Is it her own voice that hearkens?
Is it my friend who gave up, and just yesterday
Embraced me while he was weeping?
I don’t know what I go after with restless mind,
What I hope in your dimness to find…
The grey of the morning I would enter,
And in its fogs go seeking
The one I still remember…
Old stars in weariness ashine,
Before the light of dawn
Go fading into mine…
Conjury that binds me here below
To the silver moon aglow
And the murky old café…
The night in the forming dew is crying,
Don’t know what I’m after…
Don’t know… my name…
La madrugada (1944)
Music: Ángel Maffia
Lyrics: Cátulo Castillo
Gira la noche en el horario
del desvelado y triste
reloj del campanario.
Rueda la pena de un tranvía,
que solitario viste
de azul melancolía…
Y un fantasma de neblina
envuelve de fina
penumbra al café.
Llora la noche en su agonía.
¿Qué busco?… ¿Dónde voy?…
No sé… No sé…
¿Será la triste y lejana Margot, que fue
como una luz en mis sombras?
¿Será su vieja ventana?
¿Será su voz que me nombra?
¿Será el amigo vencido que ayer nomás
me dio un abrazo llorando?
Yo no sé que ando buscando sin cesar,
que en tu penumbra he de hallar…
Quiero cruzar la madrugada
buscando entre brumas
la que no fue olvidada…
Viejas estrellas del hastío
la luz del alba alumbra
muriendo dentro mío.
Sortilegio con que me ata
la luna de plata
y el turbio café…
Llora la noche en el rocío.
¿Qué busco? … ¿Quién soy?…
No sé… No sé…