The drama behind the story of the tango “forty” hiding a tragedy called family.
By Jaime Clara
Although not integrate the repertoire of the most popular tangos, Forty is the most sung. Surely his cut losóco, reexivo some air, It draws attention to the depth of his message supports, as usual, thousand and one interpretations. But nevertheless, Little is known about the reasons that led Francisco Gorrindo (1908-1963) write, in 1937, the letter of this tango which was completed with the music of guitarist, Roberto Grela (1913-1992). Behind this letter a tragic and sordid history hides.
The tip of the hank gave me the president reminded the Uruguayan Tango Academy, Ramiro Carámbula. Your guide, the original story appeared. Argentine journalist Julio Jorge Nelson (1913–1976), real name Isaac Rosofsky, diffuser, poet and author of tango lyrics, He told, one time, Elma, the widow of Francisco Gorrindo, he confessed to The Forty was based on a real event, a shameful secret, her husband pretended in the verses of the song, on a "forbidden passion".
The incident occurred in La Plata, capital of the province of Buenos Aires. There, a prestigious and affluent city marriage, He had three children, twin and one male. The three grew well educated, within a model family, of those Sunday Mass. The Twins, as have, They were beautiful. male, few years younger than her sisters, He called Giordano Bruno. As they grew, Griordano spied her sisters, It prompting incestuous thoughts, it being discovered, They were reciprocated by them.
As chronicled Rosofsky says, when "they are romping over the fangal, one day fell in the mud: one of the twins was expecting a baby. "Pregnant suggested marry in another country to live as husband and wife, despite being brothers, while the other sister and Giordano himself, They tried to convince abort. Finally, after long and harsh discussions, a child was born, christened José Pablo.
There was everything: reproaches, family pressures, abuse, desplantes, insults and grievances, violence of all kinds. The mother was accused of being the offense Family, -little being unmarried mother knew of the incestuous relationship- He prompting him to kill himself by throwing under a tram. José Pablo grew up raised by his aunt and his father. He is very young, He fell in love with a woman twenty years older, Mabel, with which despite pressure, He married, It prompting another family scandal.
They say that Mabel was a very ugly woman, which deepened further the difference with the young José Pablo, with consequent family rejection. Journalist Julio Jorge Nelson was telling Gorrindo on the paradoxes of life "Do you realize Francisco? He was born of a relationship between siblings. "Now his wife, "Embodies the horror of incest. José Pablo walks with his arm tragedy, and both are a remnant of the primordial horde ".
This story, who knew firsthand, Francisco Gorrindo wrote forty. When you play the card game known as "Tute", forty singing is a courageous attitude. Signica that one will more, looking for win. Surely this source, sing the forty to another person tell signica, no laps, everything that one would dislike about their attitudes, researchers have Oscar del Priore and Irene Amuchástegi in his book Cien fundamental tangos.
For them, in tango The forty, presents "a man who returns to the neighborhood, Disenchanted World. He moved away long ago and again broken his journey, surely, I would not have wanted to do. He has lost condence in others, It has met with fierce people and no longer believe in anyone, or him. "The tango was premiered by Fernando Diaz. Then he sang Antonio Maida and soon, Azucena Maizani interpreted in Radio Belgrano, giving the first widespread.
But the first recordings and several tours, It was the version of Charlo, which gave him an international projection. From Success, the author told a few people the story that inspired the song. With the verse "the murky, cold look ...", It is intuition, by José Pablo, of being a child of incest; when "curda and memories ..." he says, (curda as a synonym for drunk, Steeped in memories) are the memories are of terror, because according Gorrindo, the young man was marked as an aberration "... with a sore chest, my dream shattered ... ".
John Paul was aware of his terrible story and it made him have a very low self-esteem, so Gorrindo explained in the verse "Today I do not believe in myself". It also emerged that Gorrindo had to change some verses from its original version. "The time I wanted to be fucked good laugh ...", He was in "the time I wanted to be good in the face I laughed ..." and in verse "misfortune was my lover, schizophrenia my friend, the taboo against him and has given all against ", finally it was transformed into "... the experience was my lover; the disenchanted, my friend ... // Every letter has against him and against any given!"The original tango was very direct, but he did not sing well: "... so you must not miss you, if some night, drunk, incest arm, someone saw me through. "
Introduce the idea of incest in a letter tango was too transgressive for the time, Gorrindo Francisco so opted for a more generic "version ... so, you must not miss you if, some night, drunk,//you saw me move the arm with whom I must go. "In an article published in the Argentine newspaper El Litoral, in 2010, journalist Manuel Adet, without knowing the origins of tango, he interpreted what he wanted to write Gorrindo with The forty was not far.
"You can do a lot of considerations about some Creole moral or certain codes taken from the picaresque, but to avoid falling into hackneyed cliches about moralistic judgments, important to emphasize that the universe of tango is the universe of myths and each of these behaviors must be understood from that place. It is there, in myth where Tango poetry acquires lasting and particularly where this tango The forty becomes an archetype of the genre. "
Source: Blog Delicatessen
