My Cup of Coffee
lyrics by Homero Manzi
music by Alfredo Malerba
Through the café window, the afternoon fades
and as I sip my cup of coffee, I reflect.
Memories march by, triumphs and sorrows,
the lights and shadows of times gone by,
the street is as empty as my future feels.
Friends and lovers, the hand yesterday dealt,
all of life’s ghosts, all the lies along the way,
I think of them as I sip my cup of coffee.
Once upon a happy time, I met you, my city,
my head filled with poems and dreams of fame.
I saw you from the heights of my boardinghouse room
and one of life’s deliriums filled my heart.
My hometown was far away, lost somewhere out there,
your night was close at hand, and so your night won out.
Your streets swept me up, your glamour seduced me,
no one was to blame—no one more than me.
The afternoon breezes ruffle the curtains,
memory’s hand squeezes my heart.
The autumn sorrows make the fog thicker now,
it filters through the crack in my loneliness:
useless pessimism, longing to be sad,
obsessed with thinking of yesterday.
Ghosts of the past that return insistently
every time I drink my afternoon cup of coffee.
Orquesta Típica Victor, singer Alberto Carol (1943)
Orquesta Ricardo Malerba, singer Orlando Medina (1943)
Libertad Lamarque with Orquesta Mario Maurano (1943)
(Spanish original after the jump)
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