Alhucema
Alhucema is the title of a tango written by Horacio Sanguinetti in 1944. The music was composed by Francisco Pracánico.
Contents
Recordings
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Lyrics
Negra macumba que zumba el tambor.
¡Ha muerto un moreno y ha muerto de amor!
Triste retumba, retumba su son:
¡Ha muerto un hermano de nuestro color!
Y cruzan la noche los negros y el coche
que encierra un reproche de sangre y pasión.
Y canta un cortejo de labios bermejos
poniendo reflejos de antorcha en la voz.
Alhucema,
se llamaba la morena,
que a la muerte lo arrastró.
Negra loca,
fue la sangre de su boca
que a los negros embriagó...
Doble pena,
uno vive en sus cadenas
y otro ha muerto por su amor.
Negra macumba, qué oscura canción,
tu sombra derrumba la sombra de Dios.
Lumbra, relumbran los negros que van
rezando, llorando al son del cantar.
Se aleja el entierro con cantos de negros
y llanto de perros que intuyen dolor.
la hoguera del canto se ha ido apagando
con llanto llorando.
Y el fúnebre carro se hunde en un barro
de sombras, rodando.
A black macumba, buzzes the drum.
A dark-skinned man has died and he’s died of love!
Its sound booms, sadly booms:
A brother of our same colour has died!
And they traverse the night, the black folk and the coach
that encloses a reproach of blood and passion.
And a choir of auburn lips sings,
placing the gleams of a torch in the voice.
Alhucema
was the name of the morena[1]
who dragged him to death.
Crazy black woman,
it was the blood from her mouth
that got the black men drunk…
Double sorrow,
one lives chained to her
and the other one has died for her love.
Black macumba, what a dark song,
your shadow overthrows the shadow of God.
Azzle, dazzle the black folk that march[2]
praying, crying to the beat of the song.
The burial moves away with the songs of the black folk
and the crying of dogs that can sense pain.
The bonfire of the song has been dying out
from the tears, crying.
And the funeral wagon sinks
into a shadowy mud, rolling away.
References
- ↑ Morena: Dark-skinned woman.
- ↑ The wording in Spanish plays with the sounds. From the verb relumbrar (to dazzle, to shine) comes the beginning of the verse: lumbra, relumbra, which has a particular sound, even sombre (the ending –mbra is the same as in sombra, ’shadow’), very musical, very rhythmical. It may emulate the beat of the drums and that of feet of the people marching.