August 24th
lyrics by Homero Manzi
August 24th…for an entire year now
I’ve not missed a single night at the café,
and I go out afterwards with the boys
to dance, to drink, and do whatever…
a year where I haven’t touched any of my tools
and I talk with my old lady once a month,
I wake up at siesta time
and I go to sleep when the clock strikes six a.m.
By her loving side I lived another life,
another life, more filled with dreams.
The pleasure of working and being away
from the café, the streetcorner, and the dance hall.
By her loving side I was more handsome:
my shirt was pressed and well-starched,
I wore a brushed jacked on Sundays
and a rose right over my heart.
Orq. Pedro Laurenz, singer Alberto Podestá
Orq. Ricardo Malerba, singer Orlando Medina
In Uruguay, August 24th is celebrated as Noche de la nostalgia, on the eve of their independence day. Manzi’s mother was Uruguayan…though the origins of the tradition postdate this tango by several decades. On an unrelated note, August 24th is also the birthday of the famous Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
(Spanish original after the jump)
24 de agosto
Veinticuatro de agosto…ya hace un año
que no falto ni una noche del café,
y que salgo después con los muchachos
a bailar, a tomar y a no sé qué…
un año que no toco una herramienta
y que hablo con la vieja cada mes,
que despierto en las horas de la siesta
y me acuesto con el pito de las seis.
Al lado de su amor era otra vida,
otra vida, más llena de ilusión,
Placer de trabajar y estar cortado
del café, de la esquina, del salón.
Al lado de su amor era más lindo:
la camisa planchada al almidón,
el saco cepillado en los domingos
y una rosa tapando el corazón.
Alito asked the date today as usual. I told him it’s the 25th of August. He replied, there’s a tango by that name. No, I said, it’s the 24th of August. I knew that because I received your post. I have a book of all of Homero Manzi’s lyrics and showed Alito the page with the lyrics of 24th of August.
Posted by jantango | 08.25.2011, 9:03 AMHow funny! I can see why a porteño might think that the tango was called “Veinticinco de agosto,” though, since that has been Uruguay’s Independence Day for almost 200 years, while the “Noche de la nostalgia” on the 24th was purportedly invented by radio DJs in the 1970s…so I still haven’t been able to ferret out any real significance in Manzi’s choice of that date for the title…but, though August 25th 1825 marks Uruguay’s independence from Brazil, on that day it also joined the Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata…i.e., unified with today’s Argentina! This is also linked to another famous tango, recorded in a great instrumental by Di Sarli, as the men who declared independence were “Los 33 orientales,” the thirty-three men from the Eastern shore of the Río de la Plata. This started several years of war between Argentina and Brazil, culminating in Uruguay’s emergence as an independent state in 1828.
Posted by poesiadegotan | 08.25.2011, 9:51 AMLos 33 orientales were.
Two africans
six argentinians
Twenty five uruguayan
Posted by Hebert Fayet | 12.30.2011, 9:02 PMThanks for the interesting story behind the title date. Alito isn’t a porteno, but has lived 79 of his 82 years in Buenos Aires. He was born in Mexico DF and is as porteno as anyone.
Posted by jantango | 08.28.2011, 7:53 AM