Great Songs for Beginner Tango Dancers

tango dancers

The Tango, while being a hot, sultry, sexy and romantic dance, is not the easiest dance to learn the steps to. For beginner tango dancers some songs are easier to dance to than others until the steps are perfected. The following songs are some of the best that beginners should dance the Tango to.

El Dia Que Me Quieras – Written in 1935 by Carlos Gardel with lyrics by Alfredo Le Pera, this Tango song has been recorded by a great many artists over the years, making it one of the most recorded Tango songs of all time. It also happens to be one of the most romantic Tango songs of all time. It originally appeared in the movie by the same name. In 2001 El Dia Que Me Quieras was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame. Gloria Estefan recorded the song in English in 2013, the first time it had been recorded translated into English. She is reported as stating that it was the wedding song that she and her husband Emilio danced to and that she loved the song.

Adios Muchachos – Friends Julio Cesar Sanders (music) and Cesar Vedani (lyrics) wrote Adios Muchacos in 1925 and this song is considered to be one of the songs that brought this style of music to the rest of the world. Sanders was an Argentinian pianist and Vedani an Argentinian poet. The song is about a man who is on the verge of dying and says goodbye to his friends while reliving moments of his life. The Shadows recorded an instrumental version of this song in 1963 and has been featured in several films, and was included on the soundtrack of Scent of a Woman in 1992. Desi Arnaz sang Adios Muchachos in an episode of the hugely popular television show I Love Lucy in 1952 and in 1955 the great Lucille Ball also sang it on another episode of the same show.

Caminito – Camanito was written in 1926 by Juan de Dios Filiberto (music) and Gabino Coria Peñaloza (lyrics). Supposedly the pair wrote it in La Boca, Buenos Aires, and is now one of the most famous Tango songs of all time. The sad love song has a simple but hauntingly powerful melody that Tango fans cannot help but fall in love with.

A Media Luz – Composed in 1925 by Edgardo Donato with lyrics by Carlos Cesar Lenzi. Donato was a violinist, bandleader and composer and Lenzi was a poet, writer and diplomat. Lenzi wrote the lyrics first, taking a month to do so, and then gave it to Donato to compose the music for it. The song is about love in a magical hideaway second floor apartment and describes much of the furnishings, sounds and atmosphere of the building, as well as how the couple are feeling.

La Cumparsita – La Cumparsita was written in 1917 by Gerardo Matos Rodriguez (music) in Montevideo, Uruguay and is considered to be the most famous recorded Tango song of all time. The lyrics were written by Pascual Contursi and Enrique Pedro Maroni. The title translates to “The Little Parade” and was originally composed as music with no lyrics, the lyrics being added some time later. At the time Rodriguez composed the march music he was only 18 and an architecture student. La Cumparsita has been featured in several motion pictures, with one notable example being Anchors Aweigh (1945), in which Gene Kelly dances to it. It also featured in a ballroom scene in Sunset Boulevard in 1950. It has also been a very popular song played for competitions by some of the world’s best gymnasts.