Viewing entries tagged
Enrique Santos Discépolo
Fans of the song “Sin palabras” have long speculated about the personal story behind the lyrics, ascribing to E. S. Discépolo all sorts of fears that his companion Tania was having an affair. Perhaps because the song works so well, or perhaps because the tango in general deals with such raw emotions, we see similar speculations arise with many numbers that were, in fact, written to order for the screen.
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…
Since her starring role in the 1930 film Madreselva, Libertad Lamarque had been the first lady of tango on stage and screen, her roles casting her image as the anti-elitist heroine, the darling of the people. When Juan Perón came to power in 1946…
The tango “Tormenta” is one of Discépolo’s most searing lyrics, figuratively situating its speaker in the middle of a lightning storm, during a crisis of faith. Like many of his songs, God and morality lie at the center. Also like many of his songs, this cry of the soul amid the wilderness occurs in the middle of comedy…
Hard times call for straight talk, and the early tangos by Enrique Santos Discépolo deliver the goods with their unflinching pictures of desperation. “Yira, yira,” the greatest song of his early phase, wields its trashcan lid of street slang like a shield against sentimentality, conjuring up a grim humor that borders on the horrifying.
E. S. Discépolo created this touching title song for the 1935 film El Alma Del Bandoneón from director Mario Soffici. The film also features Discépolo’s epoch-making protest tango “Cambalache.”
The anthemic protest song “Cambalache” by Enrique Santos Discépolo (1901-1951) is one of the few tangos that transcends the genre entirely, and it has been adapted by punk bands as well as crossover hip-hop artists. Written in 1934 amid Argentina’s “Decade of Infamy” during the Great Depression, the song gave voice to the disaffected…
