Epoca

I interpreted these lyrics to refer to the time during the military dictatorship in Argentina when tens of thousands of young men and women were "disappeared" (murdered) by the government in a bid to silence opposition, hence my usage of terms like "he/she was disappeared" (as that is how Argentines would refer to being murdered in English). I used "he" and "she" interchangeably since the 3rd person conjugation of the verb leaves the subject unclear, but this could also be interpreted as "it"-- as in the country of Argentina itself. In this way, the structure of the Castellano language spoken in Buenos Aires actually allows the author to make a poignant statement of the indiscriminate death that took place during this period of time. The "pañuelo blanco" in this interpretation refers to the white headscarves worn by the Madres of the Plaza De Mayo, who march every week in front of the president's house in remembrance of their kidnapped and slain sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters. In the early verses, the young boy who "makes a guess" is actually discerning that he is the child of a murdered mother in the torture camps, adopted by a military family in secret and only later reunited with his biological family, which is actually a reality for hundreds of Argentines today. Final thought: the choice of the word "airs" in the chorus was made to refer back to the name of the city itself, with the author implying that the city lost its very identity by no longer being the city of "good air" (Buenos Aires) because something evil was in the air. -Erin Mastrantonio, 2017