"At the Foot of the Holy Cross": A Tango Protest Song

"Sin trabajo, sin pan," Ernesto de la Cárcova, 1893

The 1933 tango Al pie de la santa cruz ("At the foot of the holy cross") tells the poignant story of a striking worker who is punished by being transported, probably to the notorious Ushuaia prison in Tierra del Fuego, leaving his wife, child, and aging parents weeping at dockside. It is one of the few explicitly political protest-songs among tango lyrics.

Lyrics in Spanish and English, notes, recording history, and further commentary are below the text.

AL PIE DE LA SANTA CRUZ
"At the foot of the holy cross"
1933
Music by Enrique Delfino
Lyrics by Mario Battistella

Declaran la huelga, hay hambre en las casas, es mucho el trabajo y poco el jornal; y en ese entrevero de lucha sangrienta, se venga de un hombre la Ley Patronal. Los viejos no saben que lo condenaron, pues miente, piadosa, su pobre mujer. Quizás un milagro le lleve el indulto y vuelva en su casa la dicha de ayer. Mientras tanto, al pie de la santa Cruz, una anciana desolada llorando implora a Jesús: "Por tus llagas que son santas, por mi pena y mi dolor, ten piedad de nuestro hijo, ¡Protégelo, Señor!" Y el anciano, que no sabe ya rezar, con acento tembloroso también protesta a la par: "¿Qué mal te hicimos nosotros pa' darnos tanto dolor?" Y, a su vez, dice la anciana: "¡Protégelo, Señor!..." Los pies engrillados, cruzó la planchada. La esposa lo mira, quisiera gritar... Y el pibe inocente que lleva en los brazos le dice llorando: "¡Yo quiero a papá!" Largaron amarras y el último cabo vibró, al desprenderse, en todo su ser. Se pierde de vista la nave maldita y cae desmayada la pobre mujer…

A strike is called, there’s hunger in the houses, the work is long and the wage is low; and in that confusion of of bloody struggles, the Boss's Law* takes its revenge on a man. His parents don’t know he's been sentenced, and his unlucky wife, out of pity, she lies: Maybe a miracle will bring him a pardon and return to his home some of yesterday’s joy. Meanwhile, at the foot of the Holy Cross,* a forlorn old woman, weeping, begs Jesus: “By your wounds that are holy, by my sorrow and pain, take pity on our son, and protect him, O Lord!” And just then the old fellow, who doesn’t yet know how to pray, he, too, protests with shaking voice: “What did we ever do to you, that you'd give us such pain?” And the old lady, in turn, says, "Protect him, Lord!" With shackled feet he crosses the gangplank. The wife looks at him, wishing she could scream... And the innocent kid that she holds in her arms says to him, crying, “I love you, Daddy!” They cast off the moorings and the last headland; in her whole being she was shaking, as the hulk pulled away. And as the cursed ship was lost from sight the poor woman fell down in a faint....

NOTES

* The Boss's Law: As far as I can tell, La Ley Patronal is not the name of a specific law, but a poetic and derisive characterization of the law in general, implying that it serves the patrones  (bosses) rather than the working people. 

* Holy Cross: The image of the worker's mother praying at the foot of the "holy cross" is a touching one; it links the suffering of the worker and his family to the suffering of Jesus Christ. The words may have a double meaning, however: according to some sources (one is cited below), the ship that transported prisoners to the Presidio de Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego was called Santa Cruz. Hence many bereft families actually stood on the pier, literally "at the foot of the Santa Cruz," when they saw their loved ones carried away by that "cursed ship."

Further commentary from Gardel.es (translated by TD):

"Al pie de la santa cruz was born as a reflection of the socio-economic deterioration suffered by Argentina after the economic crash of 1930. It denounces the brutal repression by the de facto government of General Uriburu, which ordered the suppression of protests by means of shootings, mass imprisonment, and deportations.

"The lyric is explicit yet leaves room for poetic allegory, suggesting by its title the suffering of Jesus Christ. Santa Cruz was in its day the name of a navy prison-ship at the foot of which, from the pier, the teary-eyed family would see the loved one leave on his calvary.

"Transports," they were called. In the National Penitentiary it was known that the most feared punishment was being transported to "The Land" [Tierra del Fuego—TD]. After a medical checkup and a meal, the prisoners were told they would be transported to Ushuaia. In the morning they had to put all their things together, submit to an inspection, and then be shackled with iron bars that didn't permit them to advance more than fifteen centimeters. In short order, the condemned not only had the skin peeled from their ankles, but from their souls, too. (Guillermo Saccomanno, 2008)

RECORDING HISTORY

The song was recorded by Carlos Gardel in 1933 and by the Orquesta Típica Victor with vocal by Alberto Gómez in the same year. A heavily rewritten, apolitical version of the lyric was recorded by Alfredo De Angelis in December 1949, during the reign of Juan Perón but almost a year after the formal lifting of the censorship of tango lyrics. Asked about the bowdlerized recording years later, De Angelis answered, "What do you want? By other means, they held me prisoner, too." It would seem that this lyric, with its social-realist imagery, its sharp political commentary, and its compelling appeal to humanistic values, was still too incendiary for the time.

THE LYRICIST

Lyricist, translator, dramatist, and talent agent Mario Battistella (1893-1968) was born in Verona, Italy and spent much of his life in Argentina. He was the author of Cuartito Azul, Melodía de arrabal, Bronca, Remembranza, and approximately two hundred other lyrics, many of which were written for the stage and were heard only during the run of the shows for which they were written. He was a collaborator and advisor to Carlos Gardel, the manager of Argentino Ledesma and Edmundo Rivera, and the director of several Buenos Aires theaters.