Malena (song)

Malena is a famous tango song from 1941 whose lyrics were written by Homero Manzi and music composed by Lucio Demare.

This version was recorded in the movie El Viejo Hucha, directed by Lucas Demare and with Osvaldo Miranda who did the cinematography.

He then tells her how he is moved by the cold and bitter emotion while she sings as if it were made “in the salt of remembrance”, and confessing at last in front of someone capable of exposing her pain in this way.

It was in the summer of 1942, in The Great Guindado, a bar of Acevedo and Libertador, located in front of the Zoo, that they had already broke it down.However, the melodic line of “Malena” refers to “Chorus No.1 for the Guitar”, by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, which was written in 1920.

Additionally, an Argentinian singer, who lives in Brazil, is mentioned as the possible main character of the tango, who Manzi met during a trip.

Lucio Demare, along with Juan D’Arienzo and Carlos Di Sarli were the musicians who since the late 1930s, developed the new tango musicality, oriented to dance and milonga, that characterized the 1940s.

Malena de Toledo was a singer born probably in Chile or in the Province of Santa Fe in 1916, and died on January 23, 1950, in Montevideo.

However, various scholars have also argued that Malena de Toledo may have been the direct inspiration and especially the name of the song, but not the person to whom Manzi wrote.

Lucio Demare installed a tango club called Malena of the South, in Balcarce 860, San Telmo neighborhood, which operated between 1969 and 1977, three years after his death.