Poesía de gotán: The Poetry of the Tango

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Margo (1945)

lyrics by Homero Expósito

music by Armando Pointier

Margo returns to the city,
a bitter tango as her cargo.
Weariness put an embargo
on any rest she tried to get.
Some nights, yesterday

chirped like a cricket until dawn,
but never as much as now,
returning again and again.

What is she trying to do? Where will she go

with a bitter tango as her cargo?
So much weeping from Margo
makes us want to weep too!

Yesterday, she thought that perhaps today…
but today it’s not possible…
Life wins out over hope…
Paris
was dark and she sang her happy tango
not knowing, poor girl,
that old Paris
feeds on the brief and brutal
bloom of magnolias
in the snow…
And afterwards,
Buenos Aires again
and again Margot
has no song and no faith…

Today they talked to me about wandering
and I said to the heavens:
Margo was always more pure
than the moon on the sea.

She had to weep
a tearless kind of weeping,
but never as much as now,

tearless but bleeding.
Voices of friends who are gone
are that bitter tango’s cargo…
So much weeping from Margo
makes us want to weep too!

Orquesta Miguel Caló, singer Raúl Iriarte (1945)

Orquesta Aníbal Troilo, singer Alberto Marino (1945)

Orquesta Francini-Pointier, singer Alberto Podestá (1946)

(Spanish original after the jump)

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