In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

GOMINA
"Tiempos viejos," a tango recorded by Carlos Gardel, the rising star of
Argentina's popular-music scene, takes as its subject the most characteristic
feature of tango lyrics, an emotion that is both vague and definite.
Evoking late nineteenth-century suburban Buenos Aires as a world of
authenticity, this song inspires a feeling of nostalgic desire, and it does
so by establishing a series of contrasts between a past that has disappeared
and the artificial fashions of the present [see Authenticity vs.
Artificiality] :
Do you remember, brother? Those were the days!
Ours were different men, more manly,
No one knew about coke or morphine,
Guys back then didn't use hair gel.
Do you remember, brother, what times they were!"
(Reichardt, 370)
Among the three substances which embody the present in this stanzacoca
(cocaine), morfina (morphine), and gomina (hair gel), gomina has
special significance. For "Tiempos viejos" was the musical finale of a
play entitled The Gomina Boys before it was selected for the Gardel
recording (Reichardt, 448). Gomina is the Spanish word for a substance
made from rubber (goma) which men use to flatten their hair, to keep it
straight, and to give it a particular sheen. Although, as a signifier, gomina
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