My last review of non-English music was published three years ago, so I plead guilty to the charge of critical negligence. Now that the Norteamericanos are out of the way, you can expect more reviews of music from the countries south of the Rio Grande, European nations, Africa and Asia. The rest of the spots are reserved for the Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, Scots and Irish. 

*****

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Argentina rock nacional, allow me to introduce you to Roberto Sánchez-Ocampo, aka Sandro, aka Sandro de America, aka El Gitano, aka el Hombre de la Rosa, aka Padre Del Rock en Castellano (whew!), who was one of the first musical artists to sing rock ‘n’ roll songs in Spanish back in the early 60s. As if he didn’t have enough aliases to last a lifetime, Sandro earned another moniker crucial to understanding his approach to music and his popularity in Latin America and in Hispanic communities in the USA: “Sandro’s sensual, irreverent style, gyrating hips and black leather jacket sent young female fans into a frenzy; his ‘babes,’ (‘Nenas de Sandro’) as they were known, would scream wildly, pull their hair and throw their undergarments onstage. He soon earned the reputation as Argentina’s Elvis Presley.” CBS News.

The Elvis comparison has validity . . . up to a point. Both singers had jet black hair and bedroom eyes (Elvis blue, Sandro brown). Both went through similar changes in style, first emphasizing rock ‘n’ roll over ballads, then flipping the balance to ballads over rock ‘n’ roll. Both men had close relationships with their mothers, and both starred in movies designed to show off their musical talents—films that were popular with fans and generally frowned upon by critics. There are even similarities in their career trajectories, as both fell out of favor for a while, then made stunning comebacks.

However, when it came to those naughty gyrations of hips and ass, Sandro clearly outperformed the King, dancing, jumping and writhing on the stage floor to give the ladies strong hints of remarkable sexual prowess.

Most importantly, Elvis was a song interpreter who was credited as co-writer on a total of eight songs—receiving credit only because Colonel Parker demanded royalties before Elvis would record those numbers. Sandro did his fair share of cover songs in his early days, but eventually became a singer-songwriter who wrote or co-wrote most of his material. He even wrote the script for one of his movies, an action flick titled Operación rosa rosa (“Rosa, Rosa” was his best-selling single of all time). It isn’t much of a script, and the opening scenes feature the most interminable car chase in the history of film, but the effort shows that Sandro was willing to push himself and expand his horizons.

One of my readers in Buenos Aires suggested this album, and I was happy to oblige because I knew Sandro had been quite influential, but I had yet to take a deep dive into his music. Since La Magia de Sandro was his eighth album, I simply had to listen to the first seven to give me some sense of his artistic development. In the process, I learned more about how this lower-middle-class kid became such a sensation that “his fans haunted him day and night until he finally built a bunker-like complex in Banfield outside of Buenos Aires and hadn’t left his house more than 3 times in 10 years.”

Yep, Sandro had his Graceland, too.

*****

Sandro couldn’t have been born at a better time to experience the dawning of rock ‘n’ roll. Born on August 19, 1945 (a Leo, just like me!), he learned how to play guitar in the Romani style (Gitanos = Romani, or “gypsies”) in his childhood. When Elvis hit the scene, he emulated his idol’s dress and musical style, and played Norteamerica rock in several bands as lead guitarist. He eventually joined the band Los de Fuego in the same role, but a couple of mishaps brought him out of the support position and into the limelight:

During one performance, the lead singer lost his voice and another performer broke his guitar strings. Sanchez relinquished his guitar, took over singing duties and threw himself into dancing to the rock rhythm. The crowd went wild. Sanchez became the group’s frontman and adopted the moniker Sandro—a name his mother had wanted to give him at birth, but the Civil Registry refused. (ibid)

The newly christened Sandro y Los de Fuego became quite popular in the early 60s through their appearances on the TV show Sábados Circulares, an omnibus-style program beamed throughout Latin America. By the time the band released their eponymous debut album in 1965, the Beatles were in the process of conquering the known universe, so the majority of the songs on their first two albums were covers of British Invasion artists, including the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, Peter and Gordon, the Swinging Blue Jeans and the Fab Four, all translated into Spanish. The band was largely faithful to the original arrangements, and though they were unable to duplicate the opening chord to “Añochecer de un Día Agitado” (“A Hard Days Night”), their versions of “A World Without Love,” “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music” are solid and exceptionally enjoyable covers. Most importantly, Sandro proved he could sing the hard stuff and the soft stuff, boding well for his future in the music business.

Following the advice of his manager and record company, Sandro went solo. The move was more of a marketing ploy than a major change in direction, as Los de Fuego appeared on half the tracks on his first “solo” album (El sorprendente mundo de Sandro) and most of the songs were covers that at one time or another appeared in the Norteamericano Top 10, including a killer version of “Tutti Frutti” and a what-the-fuck-were-they-thinking version of Sgt. Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets.” On the follow-up Alma y fuego, Los de Fuego was supplanted by Su Conjuto, aka The Black Combo, a group of musicians with a background in jazz. Over the next four albums, Sandro would expand his sound and gradually replace cover songs with original compositions largely co-written with his manager and lyricist, Oscar Anderle.

For La Magia de Sandro, the artist was paired with an orchestra led by Jorge Lopez Ruiz, a multi-instrumentalist who at the time was working as the musical director for CBS in Argentina. The album is heavily tilted towards ballads (nine), with only one rocker, one gypsy folk arrangement, and a lame attempt at a country-western song that feels seriously out of place. As such, La Magia de Sandro has more in common with the music Elvis released after he was drafted into the army than his hip-shaking period, but there is one huge difference. The ballads Elvis sang during that phase were “sweet and romantic,” while Sandro colors his ballads with passionate fervor, sincere emotion, and plenty of sensuality. His voice is uniquely captivating, and despite the strong emotive content of many of his songs, he was an extraordinarily disciplined vocalist with an intuitive feel for phrasing and crystal clear enunciation that rivals Sinatra.

¡Que siga el espectáculo!

*****

All songs written by Sandro and Oscar Anderle except where noted. Lyrics and chord patterns courtesy of laquerda.net. Translations: mine with a little help from Alicia.

“Tengo” (“I’ve Got . . .” or “I have”): The only rocker on the album was ranked 15th on the lists of 100 best Argentine rock songs by both MTV and Rolling Stone Argentina. I think it would have earned a higher spot had they eliminated the completely inappropriate and out-of-place appearances of the orchestra blasting out of the left channel and limited the arrangement to guitar, organ and horns—and I have evidence to back me up! I found a live version sans orchestra on Chileenvivo (part of a medley with “Dame el fuego de tu amor”) that kicks ass!

Fortunately, Sandro had more than enough energy to overcome the arrangement’s deficiencies. The song opens with a sprightly guitar riff followed by the first of several wordless vocalizations from the singer that appear throughout the song: grunts, trills, laughs, umms, and the “ah” sound vocalized by Chuck Berry on “Too Much Monkey Business.” These vocal enhancements are not in the least superfluous, as this is a song about a male suitor trying to convince a female member of the species to mate with him, and Sandro’s super-charged vocalizations call up images of a tiger during mating season, hoping that his growls and roars will encourage a tigress to get down-and-dirty. As a member of the human race, Sandro had a backup plan in case the grunts failed to do the trick: passion-drenched language.

Tengo
Un mundo de sensaciones
Un mundo de vibraciones
Que te puedo regalar

Tengo
Dulzura para brindarte
Caricias para entregarte
Si tú me quieres amar

I’ve got
A world of sensations
A world of vibrations
That I can give you.

I have sweetness to give you,
Caresses to give you,
If you want to love me.

And if those promises failed to land, Sandro offered her “Poemas de amor y rosas” (Poems of love and roses) while guaranteeing her “Serán los días más felices/Que puedas tu vivir” (the happiest days you will ever live). Under normal circumstances, the mention of roses and their innate mix of pain and pleasure would have done the trick for me, but the verse appears late in the song, and I’d already thrown Sandro my undergarments after the first verse.

The rhythm established by the drums is straight 4/4 time without the emphasis on the backbeat, but Sandro’s two-syllable opening lines provide sufficient syncopation to qualify “Tengo” as an ass-shaker. The chords in the verses form a classic rock pattern of D-G-A-D, while the chorus provides a welcome change to F-Dm-Bb-C. In this case, the chords hardly matter because the joy and excitement in Sandro’s voice carry the day.

“Me Amas Y Me Dejas” (“You Love Me and You Leave Me”): What I find most interesting about Sandro’s love ballads is that he often depicts himself on the losing end of the romance. These displays of weakness are in stark contrast to the typical behavior expected of a man in a country noted for its machismo. My experience in Buenos Aires mirrored the experience of another woman who wrote about her introduction to Argentine culture for the JYAN Blog:

“Machismo.” The word rings loud in my ears as I walk down the street each day, receiving numerous catcalls. I hear catcalls of “rubia. hermosa,” which means “beautiful blonde girl” in English. These catcalls are the soundtrack to my daily commute. Seemingly inconsequential words that shouldn’t roll off my back so easily but, after almost two months, are the unfortunate background noise that I’ve adopted here in Buenos Aires. In fact, it seems as though every man in this city has been instructed to shout at women. This includes truck drivers, construction workers, shop owners, and taxi drivers—the list goes on. Yet, interestingly enough, I have yet to see a woman reach out to a man in this way. Why are women singled out in such an obvious and consistent way? In Argentina, the concept of machismo, that men are aggressively dominant over women, is an active part of the culture that has defined gender stereotypes for centuries.

I wasn’t particularly worried when men stared at me or engaged in catcalls because I was well-trained in the martial arts and could kick their asses without breaking a sweat if they got too aggressive. The weirdest experience I had with my blondness in Latin America occurred in Santiago, when a group of men and women surrounded me and asked if they could touch my hair. I let them have a few feels before excusing myself, as I knew that my Chilean hosts rarely encounter a creature with a naturally blonde mop.

A more recent visitor to B.A. noted that “many of the more overt acts of hypermasculinity, such as frequent catcalling and even groping, have decreased with the recent rise of feminism in the country.” That’s nice, but Sandro recorded this album in the late 1960s, when feminism was unheard of in Latin America. So why did Sandro choose to defy cultural norms by stooping to beggary in the hope that his former or flaky lovers might give him another chance?

Here’s my hypothesis: women want and expect their men to deliver the hard stuff when it’s time to satisfy sexual desire, but unexpected vulnerability melts our hearts, triggering an emotional connection that has more staying power than a quickie. Sandro’s rock songs soak the clitoris; his ballads do the same while inspiring a desire to soothe his emotional wounds.

In “Me Amas Y Me Dejas,” we find Sandro wanting a solid, long-term relationship with a woman who apparently views him as an in-betweener as she waits for her dream guy to enter her life. Supported by an excellent orchestral arrangement and a piano playing notes below middle C to evoke a deep melancholy, Sandro employs his remarkable control of vibrato to give us a picture of a man ready to burst into tears. The lyrics take us through the endless cycle of connection followed by disconnection:

Vibrante de emoción
Palpita el corazón
Que espera tu llegada

Y cuando estás aquí
Te amarras junto a mi
Volviéndome la vida

Tus labios al besar
Me obligan a olvidar
Cerrando mis heridas

Y vuelves a marchar
Y yo a agonizar
Mas tú igual te alejas

Mañana será igual
Historia sin final
Me amas y me dejas

Vibrant with emotion
The heart beats
Awaiting your arrival

And when you’re here
You tie yourself to me
Bringing me back to life

Your lips, when we kiss,
Force me to forget
Closing my wounds

And you leave again
And I agonize
But you still walk away

Tomorrow will be the same
Story without end
You love me and leave me

When I first heard this song, I felt Sandro’s delivery crossed the line into emotional overkill, but after listening to it a few more times, his sincerity won me over. The chord pattern is also quite appealing, particularly in the more dramatic chorus with its subtle use of a F#m-F#7 transition to kick off the build with its raft of tension-dripping 7th chords.

Before we go to the next song, I would like to make something crystal clear: I had a great time during both of my visits to Buenos Aires, a city designed for night owls like me.

“Puerto Sin Amor” (“Port Without Love”): The Aderle-Sandro songwriting team imbued this song with a touch of Spain, opening the song with a trumpet figure and chord pattern in the Phrygian mode—an excellent choice for a tale narrated by a seafaring man.

Sandro establishes the core melody with a series of “la-la-las” executed to perfection before proceeding to a most interesting story that takes advantage of the multiple meanings of the Spanish word “ilusión.” The word can be translated as “dream,” “delusion,” “hope,” and “hallucination,” so we’re never really sure if the narrator is dealing with reality or fantasy in his search for a long-lost love interest. As the ambiguity is important to understanding the song, I will use “ilusión” in the English translation and allow you to interpret the word to your liking.

Llegué de alta mar muy cansado, quizás
De andar por la vida y rodar
Traía los ojos de mundo y de sol
Las manos repletas de mar

Entré en la taberna queriendo beber
Buscando el recuerdo de aquella mujer
Que fue mi ilusión
Que fue mi ilusión

Las mismas paredes y el mismo lugar
Volvían su amor a evocar
Las mesas, la gente, y la misma emoción
El tiempo marchaba hacia atrás

Busqué en la fonola la vieja canción
Que fue compañera de aquella pasión
Que fue mi ilusión
Que fue mi ilusión

I arrived from the high seas very tired, perhaps
From wandering through life and rolling
My eyes were filled with the world and the sun
My hands were full of sea

I entered the tavern wanting to drink
Searching for the memory of that woman
Who was my ilusión
Who was my ilusión

The same walls and the same place
Evoked her love again
The tables, the people, and the same emotion
Time marched backward

I searched the jukebox for the old song
Which was the companion of that passion
Which was my ilusión
Which was my ilusión

In the end, the possibility of hope is eliminated as he realizes that his search will end in failure. She may have been real at one time, but now she is nothing more than an illusion.

Tan solo un momento la pude escuchar
Tu nombre quería gritar
Buscando la noche a la calle salí
La niebla me hablaba de ti

El puerto, los barcos y el amanecer
Ahogaba el recuerdo de un viejo querer
Que fue mi ilusión
Que fue mi ilusión

I could only hear it for a moment
I wanted to shout your name
I went out into the street searching for the night
The fog spoke to me of you

The port, the ships, and the dawn
Drowned out the memory of an old love
Which was my ilusión
Which was my ilusión

Sandro delivers his lines with a combination of desperation and anxiety, evoking empathy for the exhausted sailor who had tried so hard to make his dream come true. Great song, great lyrics, great arrangement, and another superb performance by the main man.

“Así” (“So,” or “Like” or “Just Like” or “Just As”): How can such a tiny word mean so many different things? Well, it all depends on the context. “So . . . here we are.” “Like it was yesterday.”  “Just like yesterday, here we are.” “Just as the Earth orbits the sun.” I chose a mix of the available options for the translation that I think will make more sense to English speakers.

This is one of Sandro’s most melodramatic songs . . . and one of the most popular. At first I had a hard time trying to understand how the song became a cherished part of his repertoire because Sandro plays a character who doesn’t know dick about women and their sensitivities. The aha moment came when I stopped to read all that I had written so far and was reminded that Sandro was born in 1945, which would have made him twenty-three when this song was composed. As twenty-somethings are experts when it comes to fucking up relationships, the lyrics and the melodrama finally made sense.

The story begins with Sandro expressing regret for unceremoniously dumping his lover. He opens his attempt to win her back by bravely owning up to his mistake, but the language he uses is more likely to piss her off than bring her back:

Así como una rosa deshecha por el viento
Así como una hoja reseca por el sol
Así como se arroja de costado un papel viejo
Así mi alma tu imagen arrojó

Así como se marcha la noche con el día
Así como se aleja un velero hacia alta mar
Así como se escapa el agua entre los dedos
Así te dejé ir sin meditar

Like a rose undone by the wind
Like a leaf withered by the sun
Like an old piece of paper tossed aside
So my soul cast away your image

Just as night gives way to day
Just as a sailboat sails away to the open sea
Just as water slips through my fingers
So I let you go without thinking

I don’t think that comparing the woman to a withered leaf and reminding her that he dumped her “like an old piece of paper tossed aside” was his best strategy. I can hear her screaming, “What’s wrong with my complexion?” and “How dare you call me old!” The second verse would have been a better choice to open the conversation, and tossing a few compliments her way would have softened her defenses. Unfortunately, he continues to talk about his pain rather than trying to soothe her pain:

Mas hoy que estoy tan solo y tan cansado de llorar
Quiero saber si tú querrías regresar
Junto a mi lado para amarnos otra vez

Tal vez estés pensando que no quiera ya de ti
Ese calor que alguna vez yo to pedí
Y que después abandoné
Así
Así

But today, so alone and so tired of crying
I want to know if you would want to return
To my side so we can love each other again

Perhaps you’re thinking that I no longer want from you
That warmth that I once asked of you
And that I later abandoned
Like that
Like that

My response today would have been direct and to the point: “No, I do not want to return to your side, and it makes no difference to me whether you want me or not because I cannot trust you. Have a nice day!” My response when I was in my twenties would have depended on how horny I was at the time. If I were in heat, I might have interpreted his tears as a beautiful sign of vulnerability and spent the whole night screwing him; if not in heat, I would have bitched for hours about how he treated me, and he would have hit the road, reeking of embarrassment. Sandro does not provide a resolution in the song, so I am free to imagine that I was dripping with desire.

The orchestral arrangement is one of the best on the album, and much more sensitive to the narrative than I was (at first).

“Yuma Yoe” (Sandro): Oh, yuck! This tale of an old-time badass gets off to a jarring start. It opens with the sound of a jazzy saxophone, then makes a sharp right turn into country-western. WTF? The song is basically a combination of Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John” in terms of the music and Lorne Greene’s “Ringo” in terms of the narrative, but Jimmy and Lorne had much more interesting stories to tell. Sandro describes “Yuma Yoe” as a gunslinger who (of course) is the fastest draw in the Pampas, but he has no story to tell. He’s just . . . there. Hard pass.

“La Juventud Se Va” (“Youth Slips Away”): When I think of the ’60s, the first slogan that comes to mind is, “Hope I die before I get old.” I certainly would not expect a self-styled rocker of that era to write a song where he plays the role of an aging husband reminiscing about days gone by, but that’s what Sandro did in this song, and all I can say in response is “Way to go, dude!” I’ve always considered that line from “My Generation” as stupid as stupid can get, and I find ageism as offensive as racism or homophobia. To be clear, I do not subscribe to the old saw “respect your elders,” because every demographic group is a mix of good people and assholes.

But I do respect Sandro for expressing empathy for people who know they have fewer years ahead than behind. The opening verse suggests one of two possibilities: either the husband or wife may be gone within a year, or they have realized that they will never again experience the lightness of the springtime of their youth. Both possibilities evoke a sense of poignancy.

Hoy quise contemplar esos viejos retratos
Que son testigo fiel de los felices ratos
Que vivimos una vez en primavera primavera que ya nunca volverá

La juventud se va y nos ponemos viejos
Los hijos ya no están pues se marcharon lejos
Pero quedan con nosotros los recuerdos del amor de ayer

Y pensar que la vida se va y pensar que los años se tambien
Más no importa, total quedará el recuerdo feliz de un amor del ayer

Today I wanted to gaze upon those old portraits
That are faithful witnesses to the happy moments
That we once lived in springtime, a springtime that will never return

Youth slips away and we grow old
The children are no longer here, for they have gone far away
But the memories of yesterday’s love remain with us

And to think that life passes by and to think that the years do too
But it doesn’t matter, in the end, the happy memory of a love from yesterday will remain

The melody is lovely and accessible, but underneath the hood, the chord pattern is surprisingly complex, with diminished 7th chords appearing at the end of each second line of the verses, adding a touch of tension that reflects the fragility of their situation. The speedy tempo in ¾ time presents a challenge for the singer, but Sandro nails his vocal without a single hiccup.

“Paris Ante Tí” (“Paris Before You”): I feel fortunate to have lived and worked in Paris and love popping over the channel for monthly meetings with my EU colleagues. Even in its worst times, the City of Light retains its essential magic. I’ve pretty much done everything there is to do in Paris, but there is one experience that has eluded me—one that would provide the proverbial icing on the cake.

I want to be the woman serenaded and worshiped by Sandro in “Paris Anti Tí.”

Renovado esplendor esta noche hay en tí…
Que bonita que estas, que bien luces así…
Con el blanco marfil del vestido de tul
Maquillada muy bien y tu tapado azul…

Y los hombres envidian mi suerte…
Lo común se transforma ante mi…
Y orgulloso te llevo del brazo
Y PARIS se arrodilla ante ti

Renewed splendor shines in you tonight…
How beautiful you are, how lovely you look…
In your ivory white tulle dress
Perfectly made up and your blue wrap…

And the men envy my luck…
The ordinary transforms before me…
And I proudly take you by the arm
And PARIS kneels before you

Okay, I’ll admit that when I have assumed the dominant role I have had my fair share of men and women who happily get down on their knees, but having a whole city submit to my desires would be fucking awesome! Any doubts that Sandro had a latent submissive streak are laid to rest in the following verse:

Esta noche especial en que estas junto a mi
Con mi amor a tus pies aferrado de ti…
Ha de ser de los dos para siempre verás
Y que el tiempo no habrá de borrar nunca mas

This special night that you’re here with me
With my love at your feet, clinging to you…
It will be ours forever, you’ll see
And time will never erase it

Sandro moves to spoken word in the penultimate verse, suggesting a walk, a spin on the dance floor, a late-night dinner, and a private performance of a song he wrote just for me! Hmm. Something is missing here . . . oh, never mind.

I am 100% positive that every female Sandro fan wished that she was the one on the receiving end of the serenade, and I think that says it all.

“Por Algun Camino” (“Somehow”): Sandro reached back to his Romani roots when crafting this song, and while it’s a far cry from jazz tsigane (“gypsy jazz”), the pairing of guitar and violin during the introduction is reminiscent of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli during the early years of the Quintette du Hot Club de France. This is also the first song on the album with a heavy dose of vocal harmonies, with Sandro providing the harmonies through double-tracking.

The song qualifies as a pleasant listening experience with its hummable melody and steady forward movement. The storyline is predictable and conventional—somehow Sandro will find his girl, kiss her and squeeze her, then bells will ring, and the couple will live happily ever after—but Sandro was one of those singers who could sing a phonebook or a utility bill and still manage to delight his audience.

“Penas” (“Sorrows”): This song feels like a sequel to “Así,” where Sandro returns to the lover he spurned and begs her to give him another chance. Other than the introduction with the organ calling up memories of Alan Price’s version of “I Put a Spell on You,” the song doesn’t grab me, lyrically or musically. I also find the change from E minor in the verses to E major in the chorus rather disappointing; a minor-to-major key change is designed to signal a spiritual lift, but in this case, Sandro is still drowning himself in self-pity.

“Penumbras” (“Shadows”): Now THIS is more like it! The lyrics are rich and sensuous, the full stops between the intro and verses add a delectable sense of drama, the orchestral arrangement is sheer perfection, and Sandro displays his remarkable range while varying tone and delivery to express a range of emotions.

The composition begins with the orchestra and guitar playing a circular pattern of Am-Am6-Am7-Am before coming to a full stop. The verses open with the tension chord of the A minor key (E7), proceeding to a pattern of Am-Am7/G-C/E-E7-Am/F/E/E7/Am. Sandro delivers the first two words in each verse sotto voce at the low end of his range, his voice rising gradually to encompass a full octave. The two opening verses employ vivid imagery and metaphors to establish an undeniable mood of erotic desire, intensified in the second verse via orchestral counterpoints that rise in sync with Sandro’s vocal:

La noche se perdio en tu pelo
La luna se aferro a tu piel
Y el mar se sintio celoso
Y quiso en tus ojos estar el tambien.
(STOP)
Tu boca sensual peligrosa
Tus manos la dulzura son
Tu aliento fatal fuego lento
Que quema mis ansias y mi corazon.
(STOP)

The night was lost in your hair
The moon clung to your skin
And the sea grew jealous
And wanted to be in your eyes too.
(STOP)
Your sensual, dangerous mouth
Your hands are sweetness itself
Your breath, a fatal, slow fire
That burns my desires and my heart.
(STOP)

At this point, one would expect to hear the chorus, but the composers chose not to provide one. The next segment is really a two-part bridge that happens to mention the song title, a passage of heightened drama where Sandro’s vocal jumps a full octave to intensify the passion in his voice. While still in the key of A minor, the chord pattern changes to enhance the build, moving to Dm-G7-C-Am/E7-Am-A7 in part one, then resolving to A minor with a pattern of Dm-G7-C-Am/B-E-E7-Am. Absolutely brilliant!

Ternuras que sin prisa apuras
Caricias que brinda el amor
(SOFT STOP)
Caprichos muy despacio dichos
Entre la penumbra de un sol interior.
(STOP)

Tendernesses that you savor slowly
Caresses that love bestows
(SOFT STOP)
Whims whispered very softly
In the twilight of an inner sun.
(STOP)

The final passage begins as a verse, then changes to the bridge pattern, where we hear the only repeated lyrical passage in the song—a clear declaration of Sandro’s fervent desire for a relationship drenched in passion and erotic fulfillment.

Te quiero y ya nada importa
La vida lo ha dictado asi
Si quieres yo te doy el mundo
Pero no me pidas que no te ame asi
(STOP-shift to bridge pattern)
Si quieres yo te doy el mundo
Pero no me pidas (STOP) que no te ame asi
Que no te ame asi
Que no te ame asi.

I love you and nothing else matters
Life has dictated it this way
If you want, I’ll give you the world
But don’t ask me not to love you like this.
(STOP-shift to bridge pattern)
If you want, I’ll give you the world
But don’t ask me (STOP) not to love you like this
Not to love you like this
Not to love you like this.

In one final blast of brilliance, the string section backs Sandro with intense vibrato during those closing lines, mirroring his feeling of unrealized desire. More than any other song on the album, “Penumbras” captures the essence of one aspect of Sandro’s influence throughout Latin America, as noted in this quote from his neighbors in Chile in response to his passing in 2010: “How many Chileans owe their very existence to Sandro’s seductive powers? He is one of the few people responsible for our own baby boom in a decade in which freedom and romanticism played hide and seek.”

“Por Tu Amor” (“For Your Love”): No, this is not a cover of the Yardbirds’ breakthrough hit or even close to it. It is a ballad that initially seems to make no sense whatsoever, but I finally managed to reach a reasonable hypothesis.

Sandro begins the song by telling his mate that he lives a life of desperation because of her love, a love he is unable to understand. This seems to indicate that he feels unworthy of her and suffers from low self-esteem. When someone feels worthless, they’re usually not thinking straight and wind up doing things that will only increase their sense of worthlessness, as depicted in the second verse.

Por tu amor yo menti tantas veces
Por tu amor casi llego a robar
Y al final he pagado con creces
El dolor que en mi alma
Hoy no puedo aguantar, por tu amor

Because of your love I lied so many times
Because of your love I almost resorted to stealing
And in the end I’ve paid dearly
For the pain in my soul
That I can’t bear today, because of your love

Apparently he presented a false image of himself and was tempted to steal something of value that he could present as a gift because he was literally worthless—he didn’t have the money to buy the trinket. In the end, she sees him for who he is and ends the relationship.

Por tu amor, padeci de rodillas,
Por tu amor yo llore sin razón
Y al final hoy no estas a mi lado
Vivo desesperado, pero al fin sin tu amor

Because of your love, I suffered on my knees,
Because of your love I cried without reason
And in the end you’re not by my side today
I live in despair, but finally without your love

What triggered my hypothesis was Sandro’s delivery of the line about thievery—his voice is dripping with obvious self-disgust. He also makes excellent use of his vibrato in the closing verse, crying over what was probably another failure in a long line of failures, but oddly relieved that she doesn’t have to put up with him anymore. I’m not sure what inspired Sandro to write the song, but I commend him for tackling a difficult subject that few composers have addressed: the widespread disease of low self-esteem and the likely burst of depression that comes with it.

“Lluvia De Rosas” (“Shower of Roses”): Oooh! I love the sound of the guitar that opens the song, a mix of strums and contrasting bass notes that sound like they’re played on a crowbar. Early heavy metal!

What follows is a perfectly lovely ballad, pairing a Dm key in the verse with a joyful shift to D major in the chorus, the latter set to a fascinating pattern of D-B7-Em-A7-D-Bm-Em/A7 D-C#7-Em. The melody in the chorus is heart-meltingly lovely, and Sandro sings it in his most tender voice. The lyrics paint an idyllic picture of a special occasion in the life of a romance:

Ha pasado el tiempo y el gran día ha llegado
Mi amor, y aquí estoy…
He venido y traigo entre mis manos estas rosas
De amor que te doy…

Rosas que una vez yo te prometí hoy estoy aquí
Dándote mi amor una lluvia de rosas
Toda una lluvia de rosas,

Rosas que serán el marco digno de una historia de amor sin final
Rosas en tu pelo a tu paso y en tu alma
Mi amor nacerá

Time has passed and the big day has arrived,
My love, and here I am…
I have come and I bring in my hands these roses
Of love that I give to you…

Roses that I once promised you, today I am here
Giving you my love, a shower of roses
A whole shower of roses.

Roses that will be the worthy setting for an endless love story
Roses in your hair, in your steps, and in your soul
My love will be born.

In short, a beautiful ending to an album full of beautiful moments.

*****

It may take a while, but I would like to cover Sandro’s earlier rock ‘n’ roll phase, probably via a self-made playlist (I don’t have time to run through his fifty-two studio and live albums, nor his 122 compilations). Argentine rock has a healthy and lengthy tradition, and there are other Argentine rockers I would like to review before I get back to Sandro.

I’ll close with a few comments from Catrin Strong of Latino Life regarding Sandro’s legacy:

The man known as The Argentine Elvis was a national treasure.

The funeral was held on the 5^th of January at the national congress, which is usually only for presidents or former presidents, the streets where lined with thousands of fans on one of the hottest days of the year. I say ‘people’, mostly women in fact (whom he affectionately referred to as ‘Las Nenas’) bearing single red roses to throw at the passing hearse. The more dedicated fans queued in the heat for hours viewing his body in an open coffin and then leaving the red roses on the steps of congress.

Although he had a very private life and was rarely seen in public, he was always very respectful to and never neglected his fans. He said he was indebted to them for making him such a big star. Every August 19th all of his ‘Nenas’ would gather at the door of ‘The bunker’ to sing him Feliz Cumpleanos.  He would come out in his trademark red silk dressing gown to receive them, thank them for their loyalty and demonstrate that his charm was still intact . . . His trembling voice, the exaggerated passionate lyrics, the exuberant outfits, his red silk robe, his gyrating hips and his fire will always be with his ‘Nenas’ and anyone who wants to become a fan in memoriam.