Malena (song)
1942 song composed by Lucio Demare with lyrics by Homero Manzi
Malena is a famous tango song from 1941 whose lyrics were written by Homero Manzi and music composed by Lucio Demare. It was performed for the first time by Lucio Demare’s orchestra in the Boite Novelty, sung by Juan Carlos Miranda. This version was recorded in the movie El Viejo Hucha, directed by Lucas Demare and with Osvaldo Miranda who did the cinematography. The movie was released on January 8, 1942, and April 29, 1942. This version was successfully recorded at RCA Victor by the Anibal Troilo orchestra, with the voice of Francisco Fiorentino. It has been considered one of the most beautiful tangos of all time.
The lyrics
The lyrics were written by Homero Manzi which is split into two parts that are separated by a chorus. The separation refers to Malena’s passionate way of singing tango. Manzi is impressed by the “dark tone” of Malena’s song, her “shadow voice”, her “shaky voice” and that leads her to sing “tango like no other”. Manzi believes Malena identifies herself in such a way with tango that it attributes to the quintessential tango essence and he states, “Malena’s sorrow is that of a bandoneon”.
“Malena (song)” enters the record as 1942 song composed by Lucio Demare with lyrics by Homero Manzi. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Malena, song and composed can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3312969. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1941 and 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “Malena (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.