Carnival De Mi Barrio (27.03.1939): Orquesta Edgardo Donato con Lita Morales with Horacio Lagos & Romeo Gavioli on backing vocals. Lita Morales is pictured above.

This popular happy tango has so much interesting history involving infighting, affairs, censorship and the irony of life.

This song links to the previous posting on my DJ Page as the composer of both the lyrics and music is Luis Rubistein our friend of Ukrainian descent who also wrote the lyrics for the previous posting I made about the song Inspiración.

The song Carnaval De Mi Barrio is a song tinged with sadness, written from the perspective of an observer. It starts with remembering and the the joyful watching of children getting excited about the carnival, playing, singing tangos out of tune and oblivious in their innocence. The chorus is a refrain of joyful memories about how the carnival brings laughter and joy to the pain of life. Then the closing verse is the other side of life of the Barrio at carnival time. The shameful woman of no morals returning like a thief after a night of debauchery and all the neighbours gossiping. The homesick Italian shopkeeper sitting on the sidewalk chewing his pipe watching the kids, lamenting he too had his own carnival back home in the Italy of his youth. It is a very poignant composition indeed and Rubistein was proud of it.

Then how come the Donato version is so happy? Feels so upbeat? Well, He cut the song by completely omitting the final sad verse to leave a happy song about children playing in the barrio with a happy chorus. This prompted me to check my collection.

There are two more recordings from the 50’s. Both of these cut out the reference to the woman of dubious morals and leave in the homesick Italian shopkeeper. This time though was at the tail end of the Juan Peron Military Junta and censorship. Where all the songs had to be non subversive, lunfardo free and non-bawdy in any way. Those recordings by Ángel D’Agostino con Rubén Cané (1954) and Orchesta Edelmiro D’Amario con Ángel Vargas (1956) are linked below.

There is one recording that contains the full lyrics, this song I believe is closer to the bittersweet nature that Rubistein was trying to convey. A very different song from the Donato. This was recorded by the fabulous singer Mercedes Simone supported by Sebastían Piana y su trio tipica in June 1938. The link is below to this.

So what of the scandals and the affairs? The greatest irony of this 1939 Donato recording is the omission of the lines about a woman of poor virtue. Lita Morales and her husband Horacio Lagos were in Donato’s orquesta when Romeo Gavioli joined. A passionate affair started between her and Gavioli that made the situation unworkable when Lagos found out and Donato eventually lost patience. In 1942 he fired all of them from his Orquesta. We can only guess as to the gossip in Buenos Aires.

But for now enjoy Donato’s ability to re-arrange a song into what is to this day the most popular version of Rubistein’s original score. This is at the top of the page. The other songs are below, be warned you might never dance the same way to Carnaval de mi barrio again after hearing Mercedes Simone’s version.

D’Agostino Con Cané (1954) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpFKRraO29A

D’Amario con Vargas (1956) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jf4UDxafIs

Mercedes Simone /Piana y tipico trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfMFMMwfebs