Poesía de gotán: The Poetry of the Tango

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Desencuentro (1962)

Disenchantment [1]

lyrics by Cátulo Castillo
music by Aníbal Troilo

You’re disoriented and you don’t know
which trolley to take to go on. 
And in this disenchantment with faith
you want to cross the sea and you can’t. 
The spider you saved has bitten you—
What can you do?
The man you helped has done you wrong—
Just keep giving!
And all the shouting carnaval
rode roughshod over
the brotherly hand
that God held out to you. 

What disenchantment!
Even God is far away!
You’re trembling inside, [2]
everything is a story, everything is vile.

In all the ruckus and confusion [3]
a groupie trampled Jesus…
You can’t even trust your brother,
they’ll hang you from the cross…

You cared tenderly, and love
devoured you from behind, down to the kidneys.
They laughed at your embrace and then
they drove the knife in and twisted it. [4] 

Bitter disenchantment, because you see
it’s the other way ’round…
You believed in honor
and morality…
what stupidity!

That’s why in the total failure
your life has been,
even on the final shot
you’re going to miss. 

[1] “Desencuentro” is derived from the Spanish word “encuentro,” which means a meeting, gathering, or encounters. But there is no cognate, even a false one, with a negating prefix in English – the words “dis-encounter” or “un-meeting” don’t exist, and don’t capture the sense of the word. A “desencuentro” can be a missed connection, a mismatch, or a disagreement. Perhaps the closest and most literal word would be “divergence,” but I ultimately opted for the slightly editorializing “disenchantment,” which has the advantage of acoustic similarity to the original.

[2] Elba Berón and Roberto Rufino sing “temblás ” – “You’re trembling” Goyeneche sings “sangrás” – “You’re bleeding.” On TodoTango the lyrics read “llorás” – you’re crying inside, which may come from the original published sheet music.

[3] The Spanish original here references a Rioplatense expression, “tener un corso de contramano,” which literally means to have a parade going the wrong way inside your head—i.e., to have a head filled with racing thoughts, to be acting strange, etc. It’s also a callback to the earlier carnaval reference, since “corso” is more specifically a carnaval parade.

[4] The Spanish original is “te hundieron con rencor todo el arpón,” literally, “they thrust the whole harpoon in with malice,” which means the same thing as this English idiom.

Orquesta Aníbal Troilo, singer Elba Berón (1962)

Orquesta Aníbal Troilo, singer Roberto Rufino (1963)

Roberto Goyeneche w/ Orquesta Baffa-Berlingieri (1968)

(Spanish original after the jump)

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