Cambalache

The world has always been a mess, I know that
in the 506 and in 2000 too;
there have always been crooks, schemers, and hustlers,
happy and bitter, values and fakes,
but the twentieth century is a display of brazen evil
no one can deny it;
we're all tangled up in a mess
and in the same mud, we're all groped.

Today it turns out it’s the same to be honest or a traitor,
ignorant, wise, thief, generous, con artist.
Everything's the same; nothing's better;
the same a donkey as a great professor.
There are no dropouts or ranks;
the immoral have leveled us all.
If one lives in deceit and another steals in ambition,
it's the same as if he's a priest, a mattress dealer, a king of hearts, a con artist
or a stowaway.

What a lack of respect, what an assault on reason;
everyone's a gentleman, everyone’s a thief.
Mixed in with Stavisky, there’s Don Bosco and Mignon,
Don Chicho and Napoleon, Carnera and San Martín.
Just like in the disrespectful display of the jumble,
life has mixed together,
and wounded by a blade without rivets, you see the Bible crying against
a water heater.

Twentieth century, problematic and feverish jumble;
if you don’t cry, you don’t eat, and if you don’t steal, you’re a fool.
Just go for it, let’s roll, because we’ll meet in the oven.
Don’t think anymore, just lay back,
because no one cares if you were born honest.
It’s the same for the one who works day and night like an ox
as for the one who lives off others, the one who kills or the one who heals or
is outside the law.