| CAFETIN DE BUENOS AIRES |
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| Small tavern of Buenos Aires (1948) | |
| LYRICS by: Enrique Santos Discepolo |
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| MUSIC by: Mariano Mores |
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| TRANSLATION by: Ramon Peñalva |
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| Last updated on: 12/25/11 | |
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Sing along with ROBERTO GOYENECHE with ORQUESTA TIPICA PORTENA |
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A “cafetín” was a small tavern, in the first half of this century. It was the place where the younger and older generations met and developed a tight relationship. Youngsters could learn all those lessons not taught at home and a kind of dismal philosophy about life. All this changed during and after the ’60’s and those places slowly disappeared from the urban scene. First stanza: A “cafetín” was a males only place so it was off limits to women and children. The author remembers when as a child he thought it never would come the time when he could get in. It mentions a melancholic sentiment equating the cold of the windowpane with his actual feelings and recognize the “cafetín” as the teacher of several things, good and bad, that helped him to grow up. Second stanza: Now there is a claim of not forgetting this place that was so much alike his mother, a perpetual harbor from all pains and dangers of the world. Then a description of the strange mix of customers and what he learned from them. Third stanza: Finally he remembers the bunch of buddies he found between those walls and recalls several of them, falling again in a melancholic mood bringing to memory some sad moments in life and his final sense of failure.
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CASTELLANO
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ENGLISH
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De chiquilín te miraba de afuera (1)
como a esas cosas que nunca se alcanzan, la ñata contra el vidrio, (2) en un azul de frío que sólo fue después viviendo igual que el mío. Como una escuela de todas las cosas, ya de muchacho me diste entre asombro el cigarrillo… la fe de mis sueños y una esperanza de amor. ¿Cómo olvidarte en esta queja, Me diste en oro un puñado de amigos, |
In my childhood I stared at you
as those things I would never possess the nose against your window in an iced blue feeling that only later, living, was the same in my soul. As a school that teaches all things, in my youth you gave me in wonder a good smoke… a faith in my dreams and a hope for love. How can I forget you in my lament You gave me in gold a fistful of friends |
(1) Chiquilín (diminutive) from “Chico” = small boy, kid
(2) Ñata (f) (colloquial) from “Ñato”(m): pug-nosed or flat-nosed = the nose.
(3) Vieja (coll) literal: old woman = mother
(4) Timba (coll) = the action of gambling
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