Mi Buenos Aires querido,
Cuando yo te vuelva a ver
No habrá más penas ni olvidos

(My beloved Buenos Aires / when I next return to see you / I’ll grieve no more)*

Credit: Todo Tango

These are the opening lines of one of the most famous tango songs of all times, Mi Buenos Aires Querido, released in 1934. It was also the soundtrack of an eponymous 1936 film. The song (and the film) is about an emigrant’s yearning for his beloved city, his old haunts and the people he left behind.

Melancholy, hard luck, crushed dreams; longing for hearth and home, unrequited love, heartbreak, social issues, the passage of time are the recurrent themes of tango songs.

However, it’s not all gloom and doom: other songwriters wrote about gambling, horse-racing, football (soccer, that is,) the ubiquitous café and friendship. Some early tangos were quite racy too!

Some say that the hodgepodge of cultures that was Buenos Aires in the late 19th century influenced this musical style, even contributed to create it. The Germans, for instance, brought their accordions along, which were soon adopted by tango musicians and from which the bandoneón, a larger version, evolved.

Credit: Todo Tango

The tango’s birthplace is said to be the arrabal, the poorer suburbs of a constantly growing city. In the 1940s, some songwriters contrasted the arrabal with the dissipation and debauchery of expensive nightclubs in their lyrics. As a result, the idealized arrabal became the symbol of childhood memories and the loss of innocence.

Tango has a particular language called lunfardo. It is an odd mixture of Italian and African expressions borrowed from immigrants and former slaves which were later transformed by use. Many lunfardo words have permeated everyday speech, like laburar, from the Italian lavorare (to work.) It can be difficult to understand some lyrics without some knowledge of lunfardo. It should be used with care, as it is very colloquial.

Credit: Todo Tango

There are a handful of myths about tango. Namely, that it originated in brothels, was rejected by polite society and prohibited by the Catholic Church. There is no conclusive evidence to support any of these statements but they definitely give tango an aura of romance.

When I was younger I used to think that tango was for the crumblies and totally “uncool.” As it turns out, I was not alone in this. After enjoying a golden age in the 1940s and 50s, tango fell victim to the generational and countercultural confrontations of the 60s and 70s. As a result, it was relegated to the older generations, while the young listened to rock’n’roll. Tango experienced a revival in the 1990s, when the younger set rediscovered it and musicians began experimenting with other genres like jazz, rock and electronica.

My own rediscovery of tango came about when I left my beloved Buenos Aires to live in a foreign country. In a strange sort of way, living abroad made me reconnect with my culture. One of the things I did was, of course, listen to tango, especially electronic tango (my favourite bands are Bajofondo Tango Club and Gotan Project)

Tango is the soul of the city. Tango is Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is tango. Images of the streets I know so well flash through my mind when I listen to this music. And now I have a deeper understanding of it: the homesickness, the nostalgia, the longing.

Mi Buenos Aires querido indeed.

Credit: Todo Tango

* This feeble attempt at translating these lines is my own (with some help from my dear husband).

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About the author

Ana Astri-O’Reilly is from Argentina, where she lived until five years ago. She currently lives in Dallas, USA with her British husband, but they move a lot. Previously a translator and English and Spanish teacher, Ana first started writing to share her experiences and adventures with friends and family. She speaks Spanish, English and a smattering of Portuguese.