march for carnival: Penned in 1916 by Montevidean Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, who gave the song its martial beat, then premiered in Buenos Aires under Roberto Firpo, who spliced in tags from two of his tango “misses” plus a bit of Verdi’s Miserere. A contentious vocal version, named “Si supieras” (If You Knew) and recorded by Carlos Gardel, came along in 1924, with lyrics by Pascual Contursi and Enrique Maroni, and another in 1926, with lyrics by the composer.
“lo más espantosamente pobre”: “ ‘La cumparsita’ cumple 100 años: Un clásico más allá del tiempo,” Clarín, April 18, 2004, https://www.clarin.com/extra-show/musica/cumparsita-cumple-100-anos-clasico-alla-tiempo_0_rJz_g7ECe.html.
dozens of recordings: I mention Firpo (1917), De Caro (1930), Troilo (1943), Di Sarli (1955), and D’Arienzo (1951 and 1963). Also mentioned: Varela (1956) and Díaz (1974).
Chapter Chapter nineteen
“break his legs”: Gustavo Naveira, in an interview for the website Dance of the Heart, http://www.danceoftheheart.com/naveirainterview.htm.
“La milonga de Buenos Aires”: Recorded and composed by Francisco Canaro in 1939, lyrics by Ivo Pelay, sung by Ernesto Famá (Odeon).
Chapter Chapter Twenty
“Historia de un amor”: Recorded by Hector Varela in 1956, sung by Rodolfo Lesica (Discos CBS), music and lyrics by Carlos Almarán.
stayed in Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s “Mississippi,” originally recorded in fall 1996 and January 1997, not appearing on an album until Love and Theft (2001) and the bootleg album Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased, 1989–2006 (vol. 8, 2008).
Rodríguez whose little parade: “La cumparsita,” music by Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, lyrics by Pascual Contursi and Enrique Maroni. Recorded in 1943 (Odeon).
Chapter Chapter Twenty-One
DUM bah dum bum: Robert Farris Thompson gives it as bang-ki-ging-ging in a 2005 interview with Ned Sublette, http://www.afropop.org/8392/robert-farris-thompson-interview-2005/.
Chapter Chapter Twenty-two
“Orlando Goñi”: Music by Alfredo Gobbi, recorded by Osvaldo Pugliese in 1965 (Philips).
“Adiós Nonino”: Music by Astor Piazzolla, lyrics by Eladia Blázquez. There are multiple recordings, including several with Pugliese on guitar.
“Balada para un loco”: Pugliese’s 1970 instrumental version of the Piazzolla tune (Philips).
Vení . . . Volá. Sentí: From Horacio Ferrer’s lyrics to Piazzolla’s “Balada para un loco,” most famously sung by Roberto Goyeneche (RCA Victor, 1969).
Chapter Chapter Twenty-three
Bailá. Vení. Volá: Also from “Balada para un loco” (see note to p. 216).
“El esquinazo” and “El torito”: Two of my favorite milonga tunes, recordings by D’Arienzo and Canaro, respectively.
Chapter Chapter Twenty-four
The revery alone will do: From Emily Dickinson’s “To Make a Prairie” (no. 1755).
Chapter Chapter Twenty-five
“A leg can weep”: Julie Taylor, Paper Tangos (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 111.
wholes and not wholes: Heraclitus, Fragments, translated and quoted in Daniel W. Graham, “Heraclitus,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Fall 2015), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/heraclitus/.
Chapter Chapter Twenty-six
“Between one and two” . . . “its own creation”: Gloria and Rodolfo Dinzel, Tango: An Anxious Quest for Freedom, trans. Martin Harvey (Stuttgart: Abrazos Editorial, 2000), 82–83.
“Form”: Ibid.
Lunfardo: A dialect and slang developed in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and surrounds. Originally prison jargon, popular among criminals and the lower-middle classes, but spread widely through its dominance in tango poetry. Notable for its Spanish derivations and cheeky wordplay (vesre, from “al revés,” making “tango” gotán and “café con leche” “feca con chele,” etc.).
“Its only passport”: Carlos Gavito, quoted in an interview with Carlos Quiroga, “Tango Is a Shared Moment” ReporTango, no. 2 (January 2001), http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~tango/Articles/Gavito.pdf.
Di Sarli’s “sentimental reason”: From “Motivo sentimental,” lyrics by Carlos Bahr, music by Emilio Brameri; on Di Sarli con Podestá (RCA Victor, 1944).
“sass and the celerity”: Robert Farris Thompson: Tango: The Art History of Love (New York: Vintage, 2005), 131.
Milonga: Ibid., 134–35, could also be translated as a plural of the Bantu mulonga, for “words” or “wordiness.” Ana Cara, “Entangled Tangos: Passionate Displays, Intimate Dialogues,” Journal of American Folklore 122, no. 486 (Fall 2009): 438–65.
the soul of a woman: Quoted in Virginia Gift, Tango: A History of Obsession (North Charleston, S.C.: Booksurge, 2009), 248.
“that which”: José Gobello, quoted in Cara, “Entangled Tangos,” 438: “eso que hace que algo sea tango y no otra cosa; eso que si le faltara al tango, el tango ya no sería tango; la esencia del tango, en fin.”
valor of the dance . . . we find ourselves: Interview with Milena Plebs, “Mariano ‘Chicho’ Frumboli: Mano a mano con Milena Plebs” El Tangauta, no. 182 (2009), http://www.eltangauta.com/nota.asp?id=1412.
Chapter Chapter Twenty-seven
“It’s only later”: Jack Kerouac, Maggie Cassidy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), 37.
“Que te importa que te llore”: Music and lyrics by Miguel Caló and Osmar Maderna, sung by Raúl Berón, recorded in 1942 by Orquesta Miguel Caló (Odeon).
“Invierno”: Music and lyrics by Horacio Pettorossi and Enrique Cadícamo; recorded in 1937 by Orquesta Francisco Canaro, sung by Roberto Maida (Odeon).
“Pasional”: Music by Jorge Caldara, lyrics by Mario Soto (1951).
“Farol”: Music by Virgilio Expósito, lyrics by Homero Expósito. Recorded in 1943 by Orquesta Osvaldo Pugliese, sung by Roberto Chanel (Odeon).
so quite a new thing: e. e. cummings, “i like my body when it is with your,” in Complete Poems: 1904–1962 (New York: Liveright, 1994), 218.
263 “Buscándote”: Music and lyrics by Eduardo Scalise; recorded in 1941 by Orquesta Osvaldo Fresedo, sung by Ricardo Ruiz (RCA Victor).
Chapter Chapter Twenty-nine
Oh lead me: Dorothy Parker “Portrait of the Artist,” in The Portable Dorothy Parker (New York: Penguin Classics, 2006), 95.
“Milonguita”: Music by Enrique Delfino, lyrics by Samuel Linnig (1920); recorded in 1953 by Orquesta Alfredo De Angelis, sung by Carlos Dante (Odeon).
“Remembranza”: Music by Mario Melfi, lyrics by Mario Battistella (1934).
“flor . . . olvida mi desden”: From the 1956 Pugliese recording of “Remembranza,” sung by Jorge Maciel (Odeon).
San José de Flores: Music by Armando Acquarone, lyrics by Enrique Gaudino (1936). I’m partial to the Pugliese recording, sung by Alberto Morán (Odeon, 1953).
“It creates for one”: Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist: With Some Remarks upon the Importance of Doing Nothing” (1881), http://rebels-library.org/files/the_critic_as_artist.pdf.
cuartito azul: From “Cuartito azul” (1939), music by Mariano Mores, lyrics by Mario Battistella. My favorite version is the Fresedo, sung by Ricardo Ruiz (RCA Victor, 1939).
“fraternity of the condemned”: Virginia Gift, summarizing José Hernández, “El gaucho Martin Fierro” (1872), in Tango: A History of Obsession (North Charleston, S.C.: Booksurge, 2009), 182.
Chapter Chapter Thirty
“porque aparta una solución”: Gustavo Naveira quoted in an interview with Cecilia Hopkins, “Bailar el tango es una forma de comunicarse,” Página 12, June 22, 2004, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/espectaculos/6-37048-2004-06-22.html.
“ansiosa búsqueda”: Rodolfo Dinzel, Tango: Una danza. Esa ansiosa búsqueda de la libertad (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2008).
gendered confines of propriety: Opposition to tango was also “rooted in a fear of women’s independence and how that would affect traditional gender boundaries.”
Joanna Dee, “Transatlantic Encounters: The Triangulated Travels of the Tango, 1880–1914” (master’s thesis, New York University, 2008), 41.
“faculty of free men” . . . “history of humanity”: Rodolfo Dinzel, Tango: An Anxious Quest for Freedom, trans. Martin Harvey (Stuttgart: Abrazos Editorial, 2000), 104 and 97.
“tango—previamente”: Horacio Ferrer quoted in Ana Cara: “Entangled Tangos: Passionate Displays, Intimate Dialogues,” Journal of American Folklore 122, no. 486 (Fall 2009): 455.
every night he wasn’t there: Because he had been locked away or banned. See, for example, his obituary in TheIndependent by Andrew Graham-Yooll, July 30, 1995, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/osvaldo-pugliese-1594093.html. Visit his grave in La Chacarita cemetery, Buenos Aires, and lay a flower yourself.
Chan chan
“una herida absurda”: From “La última curda” (1956), lyrics by Cátullo Castillo, music by Aníbal Troilo.
About the Author
Meghan Flaherty has an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Rumpus, the New Inquiry, and the Iowa Review. Tango Lessons is her first book. She lives in Palo Alto, California.
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