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translated by Jake Spatz
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| Bailarín compadrito | Badass dancer | |
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Music & Lyrics: Miguel Bucino Rec. by Alfredo de Angelis |
Tr. Jake Spatz Recited 19 Oct. 05, Divino Lounge |
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Vestido como dandy, peinao a la gomina y dueño de una mina más linda que una flor, bailás en la milonga con aire de importancia, luciendo la elegancia y haciendo exhibición. |
All done up like a gent, with your patent-leather hair, and a floozy in your pockets who's finer than a flower, you dance around the milongas with an air of great importance, putting on a performance and glistening with finesse. |
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Cualquiera iba a decirte, che, reo de otros tiempos, que un día llegarías a rey de cabaret, que pa' enseñar tu corte pondrías academia... Al taura siempre premia la suerte que es mujer. |
Anyone could have told you, you one-time freeloading bum, that one day you'd become the king of the nightclub scene, that to teach your special moves you'd open up an academy... For lady luck is a madam, pal, and she always picks a stud. |
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Bailarín compadrito, que floriaste tu corte primero, en el viejo bailongo orillero de Barracas al sur. |
'Cause you're a badass dancer, who got his first hot moves down in the old dancehall at the edge of town south of Barracas station. |
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Bailarín compadrito, que quisiste probar otra vida, y al lucir tu famosa corrida te viniste al Maipú. |
'Cause you're a badass dancer, who was dying to get a new lifestyle on, and you came to Maipú to light up the salons with your famous syncopation. |
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Araca, cuando a veces oís La Cumparsita yo sé cómo palpita tu cuore al recordar que un día lo bailaste de lengue y sin un mango y ahora el mismo tango bailás hecho un bacán. |
Come off it, from time to time you hear "La cumparsita" and I know your heartbeat throbs to remember way back when you used to dance it in shirtsleeves, without a dime to your name, and you dance the same song now a dressed-to-the-nines made man. |
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Pero algo vos darías por ser sólo un ratito el mismo compadrito del tiempo que se fue, pues cansa tanta gloria y un poco triste y Viejo te ves en el espejo del viejo cabaret. |
But you'd rather give up everything to be, just for a moment, that same badass hoodlum from a time that went away, since too much success can get tiresome and you're looking a little wearier and older in the mirror of that same old cabaret. |
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NOTE Compadrito actually does mean "badass." A certain porteña I'd never met before once told me, in a thick accent, that "badass" carries a pejorative connotation which the Spanish term doesn't have in Buenos Aires. She suggested I find a suitable alternative. I told her I'm a native speaker of English, and that "badass" has never been pejorative, or even negative. You wouldn't call someone a "badass," she continued, at the dinner table, or in polite company; it would be in, at best, questionable taste. But you would be perfectly within the bounds of decorum were you to call someone—even someone present—a "compadrito." I told her I'm a native speaker of English, and that the next time she had a dinner table nearby, I would be happy to recite the lyric at it, under whatever title she preferred, provided she could find some polite company. |
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All contents copyright 2006