Poesía de gotán: The Poetry of the Tango

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Un tango y nada más (1945)

A Tango and Nothing More

lyrics by Carlos Waiss
music by Armando Lacava/Juan Pomati

One more tango, a sparrow from the old neighborhood,
arrives, grinding out its cruel disappointment.
The memories of my life are swirling around,
my grey life that no longer has a song.
Where could they be, those who were my companions,
my first love in a pale nightfall,
and that whistle from the corner that beckons
toward the warmth of that old café?

Who knows where I can find
everything I lost, crazed with ambition?
Of those bygone times
all that’s left is one more tango.
Just one more tango that brings
the failure of not being,
the fatigue of my wandering.
Life, when it rolled on, left only
a tango and nothing more. 

One more tango, a sparrow from the old neighborhood
trembles in the painful shadow of the past.
One more tango, and the toylike moon
tells lies again in the sad nightfall.
I burned my youth on the traveling cross
in the chimera of moving, always moving.
My anxieties search for the warmth of spring
and there is only a tango and nothing more. 

Orquesta Carlos Di Sarli, singer Jorge Durán (1945)

Orquesta Alfredo De Angelis, singer Julio Martel (1945)

Ariel Ardit (2013)

(Spanish original after the jump)

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