Come have coffee with me in Buenos Aires...

Come have coffee with me in Buenos Aires...

Así se baila el tango - This is how you dance tango

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What do they know, that upper crust, so classy and elite,
What do they know of tango, what do they know of rhythm?
Here is the elegance, what a look, what a silhouette!
What comportment, what arrogance, what class, for dancing!

This is how you dance tango, while I draw the figure eight
With those filigrees, I'm like a painter
And now a run, a turn, a seat,
That's how you dance tango, the tango of my youth!

This is how you dance tango!
Feeling the blood rising in your face at each beat
While the arm like a serpent, coils around the waist, as if it would break

This is how you dance tango!
Our breaths mixing
Closing the eyes to listen better,
How the violins tell the bellows
why, since that night, Malena no longer sang.

[Lyrics from Adriana Varela’s version ]
Will it be woman or reed when a break is made
Will she have a spring or cord, to move the feet?
The truth is that my outfit is better than nothing,
Dancing is a wild thing that makes me go crazy.

Sometimes I ask myself if it wouldn't be my shadow
That always pursues me, or some being without will.
But it was born this way, for the milonga
And like me, is dying to dance.

These tango lyrics of Así Se Baila el Tango nostalgically describe how to dance tango, and different moves, in a way that propels us to dance. This song has the connotation that the upper-class is trying to dance tango, but they don’t really know how to tango. The first line of this song, "Qué saben los pitucos, lamidos y shushetas," has a lot of lunfardo, which is the word to describe Argentinian slang, especially Argentinian slang of the golden era. When I have a song like this is I compare the different translations of each word in conjunction with the other words, to find the combination that makes the most sense. Similarly, in the last line that Adriana Varela sings in her version, the word “prenda” was confusing.

 

Fuimos - We were

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Translation by Tango Allison/Allison Carter - My favorite version of this song, Fuimos, is by Adriana Varela, in her album Maquillaje, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOPUUvNrs7s&list=PL122F472850DA6196&index=1

I was like a rain of ash and weariness
in the resigned hours of your life
Drop of vinegar spilled,
fatally spilled, over all your wounds.
You were, and it was my fault, a swallow in the snow
a rose consumed by the cloud that doesn't rain.
We were the hope that doesn't arrive, that doesn't quite reach,
that cannot illuminate its gentle afternoon
We were the traveler who doesn't beg, who doesn't pray, who doesn't cry, who just sits down and dies.

Go!
Can't you understand that you're killing yourself?
Can't you understand that I'm calling you?
Go!
Don't kiss me, that I'm crying over you,
And I would like to not cry over you anymore
Don't you see?

It's better that my pain
remains thrown away with your love
freed of my final love
Go!
Don't you understand that I'm saving you?
Don't you understand that I'm loving you?
Don't follow me, nor call me, nor kiss me,
nor cry over me, nor love me more!

We were clutching the anguish of a premonition
by the night of a pathway without exits
pale remains of a shipwreck,
shaken by the waves of love and of life.
We were pushed in a desolate wind
shadows of a shadow that turned around the past.
We were the hope that doesn't arrive, that doesn't quite reach,
that can't illuminate its sunny afternoon
We were the traveler who doesn't ask, who doesn't pray, who doesn't cry, who just sits down and dies.

Check out the Spanish lyrics here: https://www.letras.com/adriana-varela/1012637/