Tango, Samba and National Identities: Similarities and differences in the founder myths of “Mi Noche Triste” and “Pelo Telefone

Abstract

Our goal is to begin a comparative analysis of the symbolic dimension of tango and samba understood as phenomena used in the "construction" of identities in Argentina and Brazil. For this, we take as a starting point the key moments considered fundamentals in the "official" stories of these musical genres: the respective beginnings of samba song and tango song which were the songs “Pelo Telefone” and “Mi Noche Triste. Tango and samba are music genres that built in Argentina and Brazil a significant dimension of their national identities. They share three important characteristics from its origins: a) they were born in the marginal or popular strata of society, that is to say, they emerged from the periphery or from the lower strata of society, and arose to the more refined strata almost in the same period and b) they are related to cities that were, or still are, capitals of countries and, in different ways, dealt in the early twentieth century with problems of unity and national identity. However, the initial similarities are not sustained after an analytical analysis. In fact, we suspect that there are few things in common between the tango "Mi Noche Triste" and the samba "Pelo Telefone", considered the founders of the genres.