[Monday Notes No. 179] Por una cabeza is a tango composed by Argentine musician Carlos Gardel for the 1935 film Tango Bar. The lyrics of the song refer to horse racing, when a horse wins ‘by a head’, i.e. with very little gap. In Italian, a similar expression is used, winning ‘di corto muso’ (with a short muzzle) . Let’s listen to the original version of Por una cabeza, and then we will try to analyse this fascinating song.
In the lyrics of the song, the speaker is the defeated gambler, he is actually the one who lost the race ‘por una cabeza’. The lyrics also speak of an impossible love, which the protagonist cannot renounce. Horse races and bets, which are sometimes won but more often lost, are thus a metaphor for love. Love is also a risky bet, but the singer says he is ready to gamble everything, once again, just for a look from his beloved.
The song is bipartite, the first part is in the key of A major. The first musical phrase (indicated in yellow in the score) consists of two short ascending motifs and a longer, descending phrase.
The second phrase (indicated in green) is derived from the first: there are two short descending motifs, and then a long ascending-descending semi-phrase.
This indecision and uncertainty of the melody, which partly ascends and partly descends, is reminiscent of the movements of the dancers in the tango, advancing and retreating, apparently in an unpredictable manner.
If we want to find a relationship between words and music, the melody also fits well with the uncertainties of a horse race, where the animals compete head to head, but only at the end will one know the winner.
The second part of the piece is in the parallel minor mode, from A major it moves to A minor. This section is based on a descending bass line: A G F E D C B. I have underlined in yellow the notes of the bass line, which runs the full length of the descending scale of A minor, while the chords are played in inversions to adapt to the melodic descent.
This song seems to me particularly representative of Carlos Gardel, who had a very adventurous life. French by birth but raised in Argentina amidst a variety of vicissitudes, Carlos Gardel started out as a street musician and worked in small bars and restaurants before achieving success as a singer and actor.
An exuberant and somewhat boisterous figure, Carlos Gardel was shot during a brawl and lived for a long time with a bullet in his lung. He therefore had a very intense existence, always gambling everything on the finish line, like in a horse race. A plane crash in the Medellin airport cost him his life at only 45 years of age. The last tragic and theatrical exit of a great artist, one of the fathers of the Argentine tango.
Until next Monday!