Music: José Dames
Lyrics: Horacio Sanguinetti
First recorded in 1944 by Orquesta Carlos Di Sarli, sung by Alberto Podestá
Imagery of loss, regret and nostalgia, with overtones of religion, saturate this tango. The lyrics open with the speaker’s arrival at his former lover’s home, to find it abandoned; people had already told him she had left, making his trip to her house a kind of pilgrimage or masochistic ritual. Themes of ritual continue: he tells her he has returned, “repentant,” and in the final verse (which is usually spoken, and was not recorded in the Orquesta Di Sarli version): her doorstep becomes his altar, and at the “cross” that is the padlock of her door, he leaves an offering, a tear. In this way the speaker mourns for his lost love like someone mourning a dead loved one.
Beyond mourning lost love, the song reads as an allegory of the immigrant experience in Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th century. At the time, with few reliable communication methods, it would have been easy to lose track of someone simply by virtue of them moving away and not telling you. But in addition, people venturing to the New World were leaving their Old World behind them, along with family and community, usually never to be seen again. At least in this case, the speaker has physical objects over which to manifest his grief: the cobwebs, the weeds, her actual doorstep. The life he or his parents left behind, on the other hand, is across a wide ocean, practically inaccessible. Even if one regretted leaving that world behind, it is too late, as the speaker is with his lover: “Where could you be, to tell you/ That today I’ve returned, repentant, to seek your love?”
Alberto Podestá’s voice enhances the lyrics with expressive vibrato, melisma, and crescendo. When he reaches the chorus—the climax—he almost drowns out the orchestra as the melodic line peaks, and all you can hear is the words “Nada, nada” (Nothing, nothing). After this melancholic peak in the first line of the chorus, the melody declines—then the next line starts even lower and continues to decline, reflecting the decline in his spirits. Then the melody abandons this clear downward linear path and jumps around in pitch erratically, almost like someone confused, lost, stumbling from grief.
¡Yo no sé cómo he podido!
Si me han dicho que no estás,
que ya nunca volverás…
¡Si me han dicho que te has ido!
¡Cuánta nieve hay en mi alma!
¡Qué silencio hay en tu puerta!
Al llegar hasta el umbral,
un candado de dolor
me detuvo el corazón. Nada, nada queda en tu casa natal…
Sólo telarañas que teje el yuyal.
El rosal tampoco existe
y es seguro que se ha muerto al irte tú…
¡Todo es una cruz!
Nada, nada más que tristeza y quietud.
Nadie que me diga si vives aún…
¿Dónde estás, para decirte
que hoy he vuelto arrepentido a buscar tu amor?
Ya me alejo de tu casa
y me voy ya ni sé donde…
Sin querer te digo adiós
y hasta el eco de tu voz
de la nada me responde.
En la cruz de tu candado
por tu pena yo he rezado
y ha rodado en tu portón
una lágrima hecha flor
de mi pobre corazón.
I don’t know how I could
When they’ve told me you aren’t here,
That never shall you return;
When they’ve told me you’ve gone for good
Snow weighs heavy on my soul
Silence sits heavy on your door
Upon reaching the threshold,
A padlock of pain
Stopped my heart.
Nothing, nothing left in the house where you were born
Only cobwebs lacing the weeds
And the rosebush, too, is gone
Surely it died when you went away…
Oh, all is torment!
Nothing, nothing left but sorrow and stillness
No one to tell me if you still live…
Where could you be, to tell you
That today I’ve returned, repentant, to seek your love?
(Spoken in some versions)
With your house at my back
I’m going, I don’t know where…
Against my will, I must say farewell
And even the echo of your voice
From the nothingness answers me.
At the cross of your locked door
I said a prayer for your pain
And upon your doorstep left
A flower—a teardrop—
From my poor heart.
Questions? Comments? What do you think of the translation? Leave a comment below!
La Yumba 