Terry: I want to ask about Chiquilín de Bachín (The Kid from the Bachín).

Horacio: Yes, yes. Why not?

Terry: It's one of my favorite tangos, especially in terms of the poetry of the lyrics. For me, the vision of this kid looking through the window of the "boliche" (cafe/bar)...he's probably thirsty, well, hungry - he's very poor, probably.

Horacio: Yes, yes, he's very poor.

Terry: And the idea of his poverty, and the riches of the people on the other side of the windowpane, that's like a transparent barrier, and the difference between them...

Horacio: Right, right, the street simply continues being cruel, while through the windowpane inside everything is much more hospitable and affectionate, and there's a lot more food.

Terry: It's a poem in its own right, isn't it?

Horacio: No. It's written to the music, eh? I wrote it to Piazzolla's music. When he passed it by me, la-la-la la-la-la (Horacio sings a few notes of the melody), I said to him...he says, "Do you like it?" And I said, "It's lovely!" And I said to him, "But what does it mean to suggest? Because I'll write something from the inside of your feelings, from inside what you're thinking." He said to me, "It sounds to me like a children's round."

From that, the idea occurred to me of this little kid selling flowers (whom I still know now. He's so much older now. He's forty. He was eight then.) And that's why I wrote those lyrics, no? Because of Piazzolla's idea that this was a children's round, and because of what happened in that Bachín cantina to which Piazzolla and I used to go to eat, into which all those characters of the night would come, no?

(Part Two)