I cannot but observe our little tango sect as the perfect refuge for solitary souls and other complex characters, who probably have never really met normal society’s standards, but instead like to discretely convene in some random, rundown venue, just to hug some other hermits for a series of 12-minute illusions of romance, even if it’s just to forget about their real-life problems. Yes, that was an awfully long sentence, welcome back. In any case, I can offer you weirdos a little bit of consolation, because it turns out even the original high priests of this sect went through similar troubles themselves: once you’re married to tango, I guess there is no way out?

In the interview below Francisco Lomuto is asked something very upfront: “sir, why are you not married?” Well, probably for the same reason 90% of my readers are not married and that includes the writer, and also Anthony Cronin for some reason. And indeed, Lomuto declares he is so busy with tango music that he never really felt he could live up to the expectations of marriage. The workaholic admits he had enjoyed a romance here and there, but nothing ever lasted because “I simply do not have the time”. When asked, Lomuto acknowledges he might just not have met the right person yet, but due to his incessant working life, it still seems far from realistic.

(article continues below picture…)

Having tried to find some clues about Lomuto’s private life, I could not find any hints that he ever got married or had any direct descendants. Also, in general, I have never really noticed a lot of info about the family life of major tango artists, and it’s not hard to see why. The members of succesful tango orchestras and the famous singers lived very bohemian, unconventional lives full of professional pressures of the kind that Lomuto mentions in this interview. That is not to say that those musicians never got married or had children, because it would take some serious research to draw any firm, definitive conclusions about their private lives systematically. Intuition, though, points in the same direction as Lomuto’s life story above.

And to conclude today’s topic, it is also interesting to try to read between the lines a bit. Even though Lomuto himself declares in the interview that music was the reason for the absence of women in his life, we can only guess whether this was the whole truth. He may also simply have enjoyed limiting himself to short affairs with some of his female fans, because this was probably also a perk of being a famous musician, especially for wildly popular, handsome singers, but most likely not limited to them only. The point here is: who knows?

What I do know is that Lomuto’s discography contains a lot of let’s say, less serious tango music and other genres like foxtrots, just like Rodriguez and Canaro, and there’s definitely a distinct “macho” vibe in a lot of it. Let’s listen to a typical song in which Jorge Omar sings things like “I was born to love, I can’t stop myself, I am fascinated and driven crazy by the smile of a woman” and “to suffer for love is the joy of living”. Popular valses like Ay mi nena and Cuando estaba enamorado have similar topics. It never gets vulgar, but it is all a tad more playful and light-hearted than orchestras like Di Sarli and Troilo. In short, it’s very much possible more was going on in señor Lomuto’s life than what meets the eye.