The tango “Tormenta” is one of Discépolo’s most searing lyrics, figuratively situating its speaker in the middle of a lightning storm, during a crisis of faith. Like many of his songs, God and morality lie at the center, and the song is a condemnation of amorality. Also like many of his songs, this cry of the soul amid the wilderness occurs in the middle of comedy—this time the 1939 film Cuatro corazones, starring the songwriter himself, who also wrote the picture, and co-directed it with Carlos Schlieper.
In the context of the film (an excerpt is in the link below), the song is a cabaret set-piece. It is deliberately heavy and morose—an exaggeratedly “typical” tango, set on a ship full of lowlifes, which clashes with the other upbeat entertainments in the nightclub. The brilliant Tania performs it deadpan in the movie, before the stage manager interrupts and demands a music-hall treatment instead (“No! No! You’ll make the people die of tears with this!”); and what was already a caricature turns into a complete travesty, which the well heeled patrons proceed to disrupt in their tipsy revels. The overall quality of the song, inseparable from the multiple layers of irony in its presentation, add up to a rare moment in cinema.
Tempest
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Tania (film excerpt)
Howling amid the lightning storm,
And lost amid the tempest
Of this never-ending night, my God!,
I seek your name out…
I don’t want that your flashes
Leave me blinded amid the horrors,
Because I still need light
To carry on…
All that I learned from your hand, then,
Does it not serve one to live?
I feel now that my faith’s about to crumble,
And that the wicked people live, my God!,
The better lives…
If this life is just damnation
And the honest live a life of tears,
What good’s it do?…
To keep on fighting in your honor,
Pure and stainless… What’s the use?
If now the right path is corruption
And love can murder, in your name, my God!,
What you have blest…
To follow you is to surrender
And to love, to acquiesce
To wrong!
I don’t want to desert you, no,
But show me just one instance
Of a consequence for traitors, God!,
To sanctify you…
Show me just one flower
That ever blossomed
From the effort to believe you, God!,
So I don’t despise—
This very world that derides me
For never learning to steal…
And down upon my knees,
Shedding blood upon the gravel,
Shall I die for you,
Contented, Lord!
Tormenta (1939)
Music & lyrics:
Enrique Santos Discépolo
¡Aullando entre relámpagos,
perdido en la tormenta
de mi noche interminable, ¡Dios!
busco tu nombre…
No quiero que tu rayo
me enceguezca entre el horror,
porque preciso luz
para seguir…
¿Lo que aprendí de tu mano
no sirve para vivir?
Yo siento que mi fe se tambalea,
que la gente mala vive ¡Dios!
mejor que yo…
Si la vida es el infierno
y el honrao vive entre lágrimas,
¿cuál es el bien?
Del que lucha en nombre tuyo,
limpio, puro… ¿Para qué?
Si hoy la infamia da el sendero
y el amor mata en tu nombre, ¡Dios!,
lo que has besao…
El seguirte es dar ventaja
y el amarte sucumbir
al mal.
No quiero abandonarte, yo,
demuestra una vez sola
que el traidor no vive impune, ¡Dios!
para besarte…
Enséñame una flor
que haya nacido
del esfuerzo de seguirte, ¡Dios!
Para no odiar:
al mundo que me desprecia,
porque no aprendo a robar…
Y entonces de rodillas,
hecho sangre en los guijarros
moriré con vos,
¡feliz, Señor!