One of my favorite tunes in the songbook is the beautifully written tango “Una pena,” familiar to most dancers in the delicate D’Agostino-Vargas rendition. Their arrangement was later followed by Francisco Lomuto for the terrific singer Miguel Montero, who left another fine recording. As often happened in the Golden Age, however, there is a lot more song that didn’t make the cut—a short bridge and a second chorus, as well as the second verse omitted from most dance arrangements. Luckily Gardel recorded the full text in 1923, despite never even meeting the songwriters—an unusual circumstance that speaks to the song’s merit. (All three versions are linked below.)
The lyricist here is Arturo Albert, a poet whose work appeared in newspapers of the time, and who was not in the habit of writing songs. As you might expect, his lyrics are a bit tangential to the tango conventions of the 1920s. There is no hint of the demimonde, not a scrap of slang, no social angle. His language relies on some tired Petrarchan clichés (to be fair, most poetry does). The singer doesn’t deliver the title. For all that, however, it paints the perfect scene of the rejected lover, giving up irony for a certain purity of feeling and unity of thought; and like a good deal of tangos, it has those friends standing just outside the spotlight, placing the singer, alone as he feels, in a world of others.
A Penance
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Carlos Gardel (full text)
Ángel Vargas | Miguel Montero
Down in my soul I feel a sadness
That maybe there’s no way of curing,
A bleeding injury enduring
From when I first knew love;
And a nostalgia for those gazes
So full of charm and sweetly beaming,
That for a moment in my dreaming
I thought could be my own!
My friends, I’m better off without you
So as to dream alone…
(So as to grieve, over my woes,
So as to cry for the death of my hope,
So as to think, and to atone.)
When in a shaky voice I said: “I love you,
My little life belongs to you now truly,”
I never figured she would answer coolly
With such a simple and decisive: No!
How much it messes up a fellow’s future
For a love’s fiasco not to let him go!
She was a fresh bouquet of grace and beauty,
But in the end a woman cold, capricious,
Whose flirty flowers, that turned out fictitious,
Concealed the weapon that would hurt me so;
She set the course for all my life to follow…
What can I do, my friend, amid my woe?
To go and meet the fate assigned me
And feign a peaceful disposition,
With no beliefs and no ambition,
Or faith or any hope;
With a nostalgia for those gazes
So full of charm and sweetly beaming,
That in a moment overweening
I thought could be my own.
I’m better off, my friends, without you,
With my sorry heart alone.
Una pena (1923)
Music: Adolfo Rosquellas
Lyrics: Arturo Luis Albert
.
Tengo en el alma una tristeza
que acaso ya no tenga cura,
una sangrante mordedura
de mi primer amor;
y la añoranza de unos ojos
llenos de dulce brujería,
cuya mirada soñé mía
en un momento de ilusión.
Déjenme solo, amigos míos,
Para soñarla mejor…
Para sufrir, con mi dolor,
Para llorar con mi muerta ilusión,
Para pensar en el perdón.
Cuando le dije tembloroso: “Te amo,
mi pobre vida es plenamente tuya”,
jamás pensé que la respuesta suya
pudiese ser un terminante: ¡No!,
¡Cómo se tuerce el porvenir de un hombre
si lo acompaña un desdichado amor!
Fresquito ramo de hermosura y gracia
pero mujer al fin, voluble y fría,
entre las flores, su coquetería
disimulaba el arma que me hirió;
ella marcó los rumbos de mi vida
¿Qué puedo hacer, amigo, en mi dolor?
Ir al encuentro del destino
aparentando complacencia,
sin ambiciones ni creencias
sin fe y sin ilusión;
con la añoranza de esos ojos
llenos de dulce brujería,
cuya mirada soñé mía
en un momento de candor.
¡Déjenme solo!, Amigos míos,
con mi pobre corazón.