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Pudo ser una vida

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Song

Pudo ser una vida (It Could Have Been a Life) is the title of a tango written by Carlos Bahr in 1945. The music was composed by Elías Randal.

Music
Genre:

Tango

Composer(s):

Elías Randal

Year of composition:

1945

Lyrics

Lyrics writer(s):

Carlos Bahr

This tango mourns the loss of a child, painfully describing the parents' failed hopes and the insurmountable emptiness left if their lives.

Recordings

At the moment, there are no recordings for this song stored in the TangoWiki. If you have sources, add a new recording.

Lyrics

Spanish: Pudo ser una vida

Los años cumpliría por diciembre,
tal vez cuando festejan Navidad.
Creciendo, lo verían de repente
sobrar el escritorio del papá.
Tendría un trajecito marinero,
después, para ir al colegio,
un delantal y luego,
cuando ya cumpliera el sexto,
habría que ir pensando
en algo más.

Pudo ser una vida…
Y es dolor de una madre
que suspira por la cuna
que está siempre vacía,
por el sueño
que nunca pudo ser.
Pudo ser una vida…
Y es el silencio de angustia
en un hogar, y en una cuna
en que sólo han de mecer
el fantasma de un niño que no fue.

Los años cumpliría por diciembre,
tal vez cuando festejan Navidad.
Sería un mozo bueno y diligente,
orgullo del papá y de mamá.
Después andando el tiempo
llegaría tal vez a ser doctor o capitán,
o acaso un soñador que viviría
rodando por el mundo sin parar.

English: It Could Have Been a Life

His birthday would be around December,
perhaps by the time people celebrate Christmas.
Growing up, they would see him, all of a sudden,
stand taller than his father's desk.
He would wear a little sailor suit;
later on, to go to school,
a white coat[1]; and then
already on his sixth year,
they would have to start thinking
about something else.

It could have been a life...
And it's the pain of a mother
sighing over an ever-empty cradle,
over the dream
that could never be.
It could have been a life...
And it is the anguished silence
of a home, of a cradle
in which they will only rock
the ghost of a child who never was.

His birthday would be around December,
perhaps by the time people celebrate Christmas.
He would have been be a good, diligent lad,
dad and mom's pride.
Later on, as time went by,
he might have got to be a doctor or a captain,
or maybe even a dreamer, who would have lived
endlessly rolling around the world.

References

  1. Its use generalized in 1918 and made compulsory in 1942, in Argentinean public schools, all students wear a white coat, similar to that of a doctor, called delantal or guardapolvo.

Further links