a prophetic tango

Cambalache (1935)

Que el mundo fue y sera una porqueria,
ya lo se...
En el quinientos seis
y en el dos mil también!
Que siempre ha habido chorros,
maquiavelos y estafaos,
contentos y amargaos,
valores y dublés...
Pero que el siglo veinte
es un despliegue
de maldad insolente
ya no hay quien lo niegue.
Vivimos revolcaos en un merengue
y en un mismo lodo
todos manoseaos...
Hoy resulta que es lo mismo
ser derecho que traidor..!
Ignorante, sabio, chorro,
generoso o estafador!
Todo es igual! Nada es mejor!
Lo mismo un burro
que un gran profesor!
No hay aplazaos ni escalafon,
los inmorales nos han igualao.
Si uno vive en la impostura
y otro roba en su ambicion,
da lo mismo que sea cura,
colchonero, rey de bastos,
caradura o polizon...
Que falta de respeto,
que atropello a la razon!
Cualquiera es un señor!
Cualquiera es un ladron!
Mezclao con Stavisky va Don Bosco
y "La Mignon,"
Don Chicho y Napoleon,
Carnera y San Martin...
Igual que en la vidriera irrespetuosa
de los cambalaches
se ha mezclao la vida
y herida por un sable sin remache
ves llorar la Biblia
contra un calefon.
Siglo veinte, cambalache
problematico y febril!
El que no llora, no mama,
y el que no afana es un gil.
Dale nomas! Dale que va!
Que alla en el horno
nos vamo a encontrar!
No pienses mas,
sentate a un lao.
Que a nadie importa
si naciste honrao.
Que es lo mismo el que labura
noche y dia, como un buey
que el que vive de los otros,
que el que mata o el que cura
o esta fuera de la ley.

That the world was and it will be filth,
I already know...
In the year five hundred and six
and in the year two thousand too!
There always have been thieves,
traitors and victims of fraud,
happy and bitter people,
valuables and imitations
But, that the twentieth century
is a display
of insolent malice,
nobody can deny it anymore.
We lived sunk in a fuzz
and in the same mud
all well-worn...
Today it happens it is the same
to be decent or a traitor!
To be an ignorant, a genius, a pickpocket,
a generous person or a swindler!
All is the same! Nothing is better!
They are the same, an idiot ass
and a great professor!
There are no failing grades or merit valuations,
the immoral have caught up with us.
If one lives in a pose
and another, in his ambition, steals,
it's the same if it's a priest,
a mattress maker, a king of clubs,
a cad or a tramp.
What a lack of respect,
what a way to run over reason!
Anybody is a gentleman!
Anybody is a thief!
Mixed with Stavinsky, you have Don Bosco
and La Mignon
don Chicho and Napoleon,
Carnera and San Martin.
Like in the disrespectful window
of the bazaars,
life is mixed up,
and wounded by a sword without rivets
you can see a Bible crying
next to a water heater.
Twentieth century, bazaar
problematic and feverish!
If you don't cry you don't get fed
and if you don't steal you're a stupid.
Go ahead! Keep it up!
That there, in hell
we're gonna reunite.
Don't think anymore,
move out of the way.
Nobody seems to care
if you were born honest.
It's the same the one who works,
day and night like an ox,
than the one who lives from the others,
than the one that kills or heals
or than the one who lives outside the law.

"...In the fundamental poetic line of Discepolo we see the moralist observing the social context and complaining bitterly about the depravity that surrounds him. He desperately searches for God and painfully denounces the lack of values.
Discepolo contributed to a more instinctive and metaphysical vision of the Tango. In many ways he called for ethical parameters for a sociopolitical scene lacking moral attributes. His first fundamental work was "Que vachache" written in 1925 but the subject of this commentary is "Cambalache" which he wrote about ten years later.
An interpretation of his lyrics may help understand why the military rulers that came into power in 1976 "recommended" that it not be broadcast on radio and television.
Of particular interest are the verses,
"Mixed with Stavinsky (a notorious swindler), you have Don Bosco (catholic priest founder of the Salesian Order)
and La Mignon (a well kept lover), don Chicho (the nickname of the infamous head of the Buenos Aires mafia) and Napoleon, Carnera (a popular Italian boxer) and San Martin (Argentina's general who led the forces of liberation from Argentina to Chile and Peru)".

(http://www.planet-tango.com/lyrics/cambalac.htm)