In 1962, Mercedes Sosa, from Tucumán, recorded her first album called “The voice of the Sugar Harvest”, including this song, the woman of the sugar harvest. The sugar was one of the main products in the Tucumán region. It is a song about this activity and women’s work.
Oscar Matus was an Argentinian composer from the province of Mendoza, married to Mercedes Sosa between 1957 and 1965. Oscar Matus, with Armando Tejada Gómez, set up the New Song Movement (1963) that featured songs with a content socially committed to the working class. Armando Tejada Mendoza, also from Mendoza, had indigenous roots related to a family of rural and poor workers. As a child he worked as a newspaper vendor in the streets. He became a writer and poet. He is well-known as the author of the “Song for everybody”, considered the Hymn of Latin America.
El sol despierta en la zafra
la escarcha del cañaveral,
y en el dulce rocío del agua
baja el viento a cantar,
cuando el brazo zafrero
derriba el oscuro sabor del jornal.
El día enciende en la caña
lo verde de mi Tucumán,
y en el aire de un silbo andariego
la mañana se va
a jugar con el chango
que dejé esperando allá en Famaillá.
Cuando la luna zafrera
se queme en las carpas de tanto soñar,
subirá por la sangre de un grito
su tambor a golpear,
pa' que se haga esperanza
el amargo almíbar del cañaveral.
La luz metal del machete
cantando por los tallos va,
y en el sordo crujido del carro
agoniza un zorzal,
cuando suelta el camino
su lengua sedienta por el arenal.
La tarde oscura de azúcar
se apaga ya en el naranjal,
y en la sombra frutal del aroma
sueña mi Tucumán
porque adentro e'su noche,
mi zafra de zamba me pongo a cantar.