Musical Representations of Argentina: Excess and grief in Fito Páez’s “La casa desaparecida”

Abstract

Within the framework of an ongoing research on musical representations of Argentina during the current democratic era, we present a case study of the song “La casa desaparecida”, by Fito Páez, included in his album Abre (1999).  For his musical reflection on that Argentina Páez opts on disproportion. The song unfolds for nearly 12 minutes a narrative that alternates between vignettes of “roadside” characters and a long list of free associations between people, events and cultural products of the nation’s history and present. The general mood of the song is cathartic and verbose, although its chorus is sorrowful. Páez defines Argentina as a “disappeared house”. The song is studied here both as a “plurality of texts” (Juan Pablo González), and as the product of the crossroads between Argentina’s political history, Páez’s career, and the rock situation, the genre from which the work is produced. It includes the analysis of the version of the album, the live presentations of that same year and, later, its new version in the frame of a series of concerts carried out in the White Hall of the Casa Rosada, in 2006.