La mula plateada

The Silver Mule isn't just another track on Divided by Happiness; it sounds as if the band had taken a riff from Joy Division and let it roll down the asphalt of Buenos Aires. The bass kicks in with that line that seems to drag itself, as if the weight of the city were pushing it forward, while the drums mark a rhythm that never quite settles. Luca Prodan's voice doesn't sing about something—it shouts it from somewhere between the corner of a bar and midnight. There are no adornments here: the sound is raw, as if the album had been recorded in a single take, with no time to polish the details.

The album Divided by Happiness was released in April 1985 at CBS Records studios, just as Argentine post-punk was ceasing to be a murmur in basements and slipping into theaters. Sumo premiered it at the Astros on May 11 and 12, and that night the band went from playing for a few to filling a stage that had once seen them as guests. The song wasn't the biggest hit on the album—that was The Blonde Idiot—but it has something the others don't: an unresolved tension, as if the mule in the title were about to bolt and no one knew where to.