The meaning of Tinta Roja...

A new milonga has recently opened up in Sydney called Tinta Roja. Tinta Roja means red ink in Spanish, and the dominant colour theme of the venue's interior is red. 

Here's a popular tango song by the same name, which has no doubt also inspired the name choice.

Red Ink (Tinta Roja)

lyrics by Cátulo Castillo

translated by Derrick del Pilar 

A big stone wall,1

red ink over yesterday’s grey,

the emotion

of your happy bricks

over my little alleyway

took a blot

and painted the corner

and that cop

who in the depths of night

walked the borders of his beat

like a badge…

And that lipstick-red mailbox

and the corner bar

where the Italian used to cry

over his distant blonde lover,

soaking himself in bon vin.2

What has become of my arrabal? 3

Who has stolen my childhood?

On what corner, moon of mine,

do you spill out your clear joy

like you used to?

Sidewalks that I have tread,

gangsters that now are gone—

under your cloudless satin sky

a little piece of my heart

whiles the night away.

Here's the song in Spanish...

Tinta roja

Paredón,

tinta roja en el gris del ayer,

tu emoción

de ladrillo feliz

sobre mi callejón

con un borrón

pintó la esquina

y al botón

que en el ancho de la noche

puso al filo de la ronda

como un broche…

Y aquel buzón carmín,

y aquel fondín

donde lloraba el tano

su rubio amor lejano

que mojaba con bon vin.

¿Dónde estará mi arrabal?

¿Quién se robó mi niñez?

¿En qué rincón, luna mía,

volcás como entonces

tu clara alegría?

Veredas que yo pisé,

malevos que ya no son—

bajo tu cielo de raso

trasnocha un pedazo

de mi corazón.

1 A stone wall (paredón) can be a big wall, a thick wall, a ruined stone wall, or the wall where the condemned are placed to face the firing squad. 

2 The Spanish original contains the French phrase “bon vin,” meaning “good wine,”

3 'arrabal'  - A low-income, working class suburb on the outskirts of  Buenos Aires. Some choose to translate it as “slum”,  but the English connotations of that word don’t have quite the right flavour. Most of the tangos have a fond attitude toward the neighborhoods they call arrabales.

image: sourced from tango.info