Playwright José González Castillo wrote his 1923 tango “Sobre el pucho” for a contest sponsored by the “Tango” cigarette company, the first competition of its kind to require tangos with lyrics. Sebastián Piana, who would prove one of the tango’s seminal composers, provided the music for Castillo’s verses, and the song placed second in the contest (first prize went to “El ramito,” a now forgotten tango by Filiberto and Teissiere with lyrics by García Peñaloza). In its subsequent influence on the genre, however, “Sobre el pucho” is one of the blue-ribbon tangos of the 1920s.
The song establishes many of the images and modes that came to define tango lyrics in the decades to come, and would become a touchstone for later lyricists. The opening line mentioning the barrio Pompeya introduces the “naming of place” convention, which became common in later tangos. The second line pictures a streetlight shining over the mud, with a street tough reflecting on an organ-grinder’s tune—-a virtual constellation of tango symbols. These details would all reappear in countless songs, and particularly in Homero Manzi’s 1942 song “Barrio de tango,” which is essentially a tribute and sequel to this one.
As for the title, “sobre el pucho,” besides providing the imagery of a cigarette butt, is an idiom which means “all of a sudden.” Here it correlates to how easily a stray wisp of music evokes melancholy reflections in the song’s main character. The song’s central metaphor, in the second verse, takes this much further, as the character describes himself being pitched away like a butt.
A note on arrangements: The second stanza below is the chorus or estribillo. This tango, however, is often performed with both verses first (as shown in many editions of the sheet music), most likely because the second verse delivers the key events of the song.
Gone in a Puff
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Héctor Mauré (orq. D’Arienzo)
An alley down in Pompeya,
And a streetlight that shines the mud silver,
And out yonder a ruffian smoking,
And a barrel organ that grinds out a tango.
And the sound within that milonga,
More than his life as a goner,
Calls up to mind for that ruffian,
Brooding slow,
The very song of his woe.
Tango beloved,
Put out for good long ago,
Like a butt that burned aglow
With the pleasures of a lifetime
That are but ashes now alone.
Tango beloved,
Forever hushed long ago—
Who could’ve told me then you’d carry
Off my single, solitary,
My one and only hope?
I am that one from Corrales,
Who, back in the galas of my passion,
Would see your prettiness shimmer
With all the glimmer of its fashion;
But I got spat from your kisses
By your mad faithlessnesses,
Like a butt gotten rid of
Right about
When all its flavor runs out.
Sobre el pucho (1923)
Music: Sebastián Piana
Lyrics: José González Castillo
Un callejón en Pompeya,
Y un farolito plateando el fango,
Y allí un malevo que fuma
Y un organito moliendo un tango.
Y al son de aquella milonga
Más que su vida mistonga,
Meditando, aquel malevo
Recordó
La canción de su dolor.
Tango querido
Que ya pa’ siempre pasó,
Como pucho consumió
Las delicias de mi vida
Que hoy cenizas sólo son.
Tango querido
Que ya pa’ siempre calló,
¿Quién entonces me diría
que vos te llevarías
mi única ilusión?
Yo soy aquel que, en Corrales,
En los carnavales de mis amores,
Hizo brillar tus bellezas
Con las lindezas de sus primores;
Pero tu inconstancia loca
Me arrebató de tu boca,
Como pucho que se tira
Cuando ya
Ni sabor ni aroma da.