Miss Understood

Miss Understood is not a song that sounds like a finished album, but rather like a sketch left floating between what could have been and what ultimately was. Recorded in 1988 as part of a demo called Novela, it sounds like those songs written quickly, almost unconsciously, as the idea of a larger project fades away. There is no polished production or definitive arrangements: just a raw take, with the urgency of someone who knows the moment could be lost. Its duration, just over two and a half minutes, gives it an air of a musical note, as if Fito Páez had jotted down a melody on the go and left it there, uncorrected.

The story behind this tape is more interesting than the song itself. Novela never became the soundtrack album it was meant to be: a short film that vanished due to funding issues. Of the fourteen songs that made it up, some resurfaced later under different names and on other albums. As de Poker, for example, ended up as Circo Beat in 1994; Novela became Nada es para siempre in the voice of Fabiana Cantilo for Sol en Cinco in 1995; and Las brujitas ended up on a children’s album as Ay in 1991. Miss Understood, on the other hand, remained as a testament to that early stage, when the artist had not yet crossed into the nineties and his name did not resonate beyond local circles.