Songs like “Milonga querida” can be as much a portrait of the world as a story of two lovers chafing against circumstance, and it was perhaps for this quality that Lito Bayardo’s lyrics are enjoyed today. In his memorable 1928 tango “Duelo criollo,” the singer and lyricist Bayardo portrays a whole neighborhood through the story of a few central yet minuscule figures, who get embroiled in a romance that brings their lives to an end. Their actions and their fates, in the haunting atmosphere of his song, are almost part of the landscape itself, as paved-in as the midnight sidewalks and the moonlit clouds in the background. This narrative style’s distant perspective, and its reticence before the events it describes, belongs to old ballads and tight-lipped songs of the country, and Bayardo puts it to work again in his 1938 tune “Milonga querida.”
Reading like another chapter in some unwritten saga, the story here, as before, seems to be the archetype itself in most basic form. The beautiful girl of the tenements, despite leagues of admirers, refuses to go with anyone, earning her neighbors’ rebuke; the one quiet guy rejects the group and leaves, and she follows after him. It’s an introvert’s love story—the tale of two loners escaping from an unwelcoming society. As before, the details seem to be one with the background, because this is not really a story about just two people: with its sense of modern alienation, it is the story of everyone in the outskirts… the world and the age of the tango.
Sweetheart Milonga
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Alberto Echagüe (orq. Juan D’Arienzo)
The poets never portrayed her
In their steamy songs like others,
And they never knew her story
Or the love she bore her lovers.
She was the neighborhood looker
And for good looks, much sought after,
And more than a hundred fallouts
Did her prettiness provoke.
But she herself was aware of
One… who in silence adored her,
And no one could ever figure
Why… she let nobody score her.
And to see her alone, so single,
Tons… of remarks circulated,
And they defamed her good name
When they failed to win her love.
And that one saddened fellow,
So polite and unassuming,
Struck off one night in silence
While the tenements were booming.
And that girl full of goodness,
And for goodness, much sought after,
She grabbed her things one evening,
And forever left her home.
Milonga querida (1938)
Music: Juan Larenza
Lyrics: Lito Bayardo
No la pintaron los poetas
en sus versos seductores,
ni conocieron su vida
ni el amor de sus amores.
Fue la más linda del barrio
y por linda, codiciada,
y más de cien entreveros
su belleza provocó.
Pero ella bien conocía
quién en silencio la amaba
y a nadie al fin comprendía
pues con ninguno se daba;
por verla sola, muy sola,
mil comentarios se hicieron
y difamaron su nombre
al no conseguir su amor.
Aquel muchacho tan triste,
tan humilde y tan sencillo,
se fue en silencio una noche
del alegre conventillo.
Y aquella piba bonita
por bonita codiciada,
cargó una tarde sus cosas,
y a su barrio no volvió.