Homero Manzi’s special touch turned the conventional themes of tango lyrics into a certain new magic. His gift was, in a sense, for rewriting, or recasting earlier tangos into new images, and in this haunted tango he draws on “Griseta” as well as “Los mareados” and a hundred other booze-laden songs as his sources. The portrait he arrives at creates something different and strange: the lover brooding amid his hallucinations, right in the middle of the very tangos his author is echoing.
This is not the only story, however, which history had in store for this tango. A military dictatorship seized power in Argentina in 1943, rapidly instituting a rather hapless program of social reforms, which sought to improve society by outlawing any mention of its problems. The taboo content—declared incompatible with military culture—included references to prostitution, depictions of drunkenness, the use of slang, and any suggestion that the levers of power might be gripped by the hands of corruption. Many tangos, to no one’s surprise, fell afoul of these restrictions, and this gem of a song was one such case. It was quickly banned under the new government due to its content—heartsick intoxication, plus a few incendiary words of lunfardo such as fueye (bellows) and pista (dance floor). Lucio Demare, the tune’s composer, had recorded it with Raúl Berón singing the original lyrics, on May 27, 1943, just six days before the takeover. Later that year, the band re-recorded it, with lyrics newly whitewashed by Manzi, under the new title Tal vez será su voz (Perhaps It Is Her Voice). Aníbal Troilo also recorded it with Alberto Marino singing, and in these censored versions it became a well known song around the milongas.
Below is the song in its original form, with the first lyrics now favored by most performers. It is worth nothing that Manzi penned an alternate text for Libertad Lamarque, who also recorded the song right before the censorship required a rewrite—leading to the unusual circumstance of one tango with, not two, but three different lyrics of equal legitimacy.
Perhaps It’s the Alcohol
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Raúl Berón (orq. Lucio Demare)
The bellows strike up, the lighting starts subsiding…
Across the dance floor, night falls, and unaware
The shadows in the corners where they’re hiding
Are now Griseta… Malena… María Esthér…
The shadows on the dance floor from the tango
Evoke her, too, as all my thoughts regress…
Let’s dance then, it just hurts to keep on dreaming
Of the shimmer of the satin of her dress…
Who’s haunting the violin?…
What tender voice goes there—
So worn with suffering
As to raise a sobbing wail within?
Perhaps that voice is hers,
The one that used to call
When it was broken off…
Perhaps it’s the alcohol, perhaps!
That voice can’t be her own,
She sleeps now, after all…
It must be nothing more
Than phantoms in the alcohol…
Just as you are, she was pale and distant…
Her hair was black, her eyes a greenish gray.
Her mouth was just like a bloom of crimson
In the dawning light at break of day.
One day she never showed, and left me waiting,
And later on they told me of her end.
And in the shadow-casting of these tangos
I see her drift again and yet again!
Tal vez será mi alcohol (1943)
Music: Lucio Demare
Lyrics: Homero Manzi
Suena el fueye, la luz está sobrando.
Se hace noche en la pista y sin querer
las sombras se arrinconan, evocando
a Griseta, a Malena, a Maria Ester.
Las sombras que a la pista trajo el tango
me obligan a evocarla a mi también.
Bailemos que me duele estar soñando
con el brillo de su traje de satén.
¿Quién pena en el violín?
¿Qué voz sentimental
cansada de sufrir
se ha puesto a sollozar así?
Tal vez será tu voz,
aquella que una vez
de pronto se apagó.
¡Tal vez será mi alcohol, tal vez!
Su voz no puede ser,
su voz ya se durmió.
¡Tendrán que ser nomás
fantasmas de mi alcohol!
Como vos era pálida y lejana.
Negro el pelo, los ojos verde gris.
Y era también su boca entre la luz del alba
una triste flor de carmín.
Un día no llegó, quede esperando
y luego me contaron su final.
Por eso con la sombra de los tangos
la recuerdo vanamente más y más!