“If 2+2 were 3” by La Renga

La Renga is an Argentinian rock band formed on 31 December 1988 in the city of Buenos Aires. They started playing mainly covers of American and English bands on a street corner in their neighbourhood, but in 1991 they recorded their first album, composed almost entirely by Gustavo “Chizzo” Nápoli on vocals and guitar. They started playing in small venues, but by 1998 they were already capable of attracting fifty thousand people. Their convening power was evident when in 2004 they brought together more than forty thousand people in the Huracán stadium in Buenos Aires through word of mouth among their fans. It is impressive to see in that concert (released on DVD) the audience jumping and singing for two hours. Their popularity in Argentina is such that, after the return to normality in the South American country, on 26 February 2022 they brought together some sixty thousand people at the Santa María de Punilla Aerodrome, Córdoba (Argentina). La Renga’s early rock sound was much closer to blues-rock (La balada del diablo y la muerte) and even jazz (2+2=3) but over the years it has toughened up to hard rock (Disfrazado de amigo), while still featuring the wind section that is their trademark.

And why are these rockers on this blog? It’ s because on their second album A donde me lleva la vida, recorded in 1993, they have a peculiar song titled 2+2=3, which begins with the phrase:

“If two plus two made three,
this world would not be the way it is”.

The whole song is about what would happen if 2+2 made three, with explanations of how different life would be (no spoilers) if this happened, and there is even a nod to the Pythagorean theorem. Nevertheless, I’ll stick with the verses

“If two plus two made three,
this world would not be the way it is”.

Well, as we have said in many of the posts on this blog, mathematics helps us to try to understand the world around us, but in our world 2+2=4, so what would the world be like if Chizzo, the composer of this wonderful song, were right?

Here is the live version of the song, with introduction included, and I hope that, regardless of whether you are a mathematician or not, you will enjoy it.