Musical work title translation

Overview

This page gives general information for translation of musical work titles.

See below for specific languages.

Purpose

The purpose of pages like "work title translations into English" is to provide translations to tango song titles. Understanding the translation helps non-Spanish speaking persons connect to the lyrics and increases their understanding of Spanish. Most, if not all, tango song titles are in Rio de la Plata Spanish and/or a Lunfardo dialect.

Authenticity of tango song titles should be verifiable. Cite references.

The creator of the song title, most likely the composer, is the only person that can know the meaning of the song title with certainty. Most of the composers have long since passed away, leaving us to make a best estimate of the composers` intent when they named the song. Some song titles can translate literally to English, others not so easily and a few might be nearly impossible. We can only try. Song titles without translations herein are considered requests for a translation. Will this database someday encompass all the known Tango songs ever recorded? Maybe! As an example of how Tango song title names might be fully explored see Mi Noche Triste.

Alberto Gesualdi, writing in Tangolyrics@yahoogroups.com, say's that it is not uncommon for a tango song to have an original definition, perhaps after the lyrics were written, then later to be used as a nickname, which becomes the remember/favored definition. The database should include all supported definitions.

Several themes start to emerge from the translations of the song titles. They are: girls, boys, friends, lonely, love, love lost, dreaming, flowers, dance clubs, streets, horse racing, pimps, prostitutes, crying, colors, eyes, kissing, local people, family members, and the home land to name a few.

Note: Since the list is about work titles and not the works themselves, the link by title https://tango.info/work.a_oscuras is better than the link by code https://tango.info/T0370170958.

There can be several works with the same title, but translation for them should in general be constant, e.g. https://tango.info/work.la_cumparsita .

By language

• Musical work title translations into English