Outro dia liguei na Rádio Nacional e só ouvi música brasileira. Parecia que eu estava em Nova York.
The other day I turned on Radio Nacional and I only heard Brazilian music. It felt like I was in New York.
-Tom Jobim
Hi there and thanks for reading. My name is Victoria Broadus, I’m 29 years old, and I first went to Brazil in 2008, when I spent a summer in northeastern Brazil while working on a Master’s degree at Georgetown. Since then, thanks mostly to Georgetown’s wonderful Portuguese professors, I have become fairly fluent in Portuguese. I spent much of 2009 and 2010 in Brazil, moved to New York for a couple years, and have been back in São Paulo since early 2012. I started this site as a way to share more Brazilian music with friends and family and any other readers out there who wonder what the songs they’re listening to are saying, and why.
Please let me know if there is a song you would like translated or would like to hear more about! You can leave a comment here or anywhere else on the site.
You can follow the blog by clicking “Follow” at the bottom of the main page or follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LyricalBrazil
Readers who speak Portuguese should check out Instituto Moreira Salles’ online radio program based on the book A Canção no Tempo, 85 Anos de Músicas Brasileiras, vol. 1 (Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Mello): http://ims.uol.com.br/Radio/D400
Also, if you’re looking to download specific artists/albums, try the site http://www.umquetenha.org — it has a lot of great Brazilian music available for free download.
Pingback: Introduction to the site « transongs
Pingback: Se todos fossem iguais a você « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Domingo no Parque « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Tanto Mar « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: “Ingenuo” and “Carinhoso” « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Insensatez « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Sabiá « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Rapaz folgado « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Lenço no Pescoço « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Back in Bahia « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Apesar de você « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Ruas que sonhei « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Essa é pra tocar no rádio « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Aquarela Brasileira (Brazilian Watercolor) « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Luz Negra « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: A Banda « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: As Rosas Não Falam « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: O Leãozinho « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: O Quereres « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Piano na Mangueira « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Pingback: Sei lá, Mangueira « Brazilian Lyrics in English
Hello, already seen this clip of CRIOLO?
Lion Man (clip animation); http://bit.ly/zANOhA
Hi Evandro, I hadn’t seen it yet- thanks!!!
Obrigado pela atenção Victoria, eu sou brasileiro e não falo inglês ainda, você fala português?.
O clipe não é oficial, é de minha autoria, mas quem viu aqui no Brasil, gostou muito, espero que goste também, e se possível, divulgue no site
Obrigado!
____________________________________________
Thank you for your Victoria, I’m Brazilian and not speak English yet, you speak Portuguese?. The video is not official, is my own, but who saw in Brazil, like much, hope you like it too, and if possible, publish the site
Thank you!
Thank you for the site. It’s a great idea and very useful! Some of the songs by Baden Powell & Paulo César Pinheiro would be great. (Refém da solidão, Samba do perdão, voltei, Vou deitar e rolar etc )
abraco
Thanks so much for reading and for your suggestions, Mark! I’ll include some of these songs in posts in the next few weeks. Abraço
obrigado Victoria! Lapinha is a great song. abs
Great site! I’ve been obsessed with Brazilian music for years, and this is the perfect way to learn Portuguese while discovering more great tunes. Just a suggestion – would it be possible to post the original Portuguese lyrics alongside your translations?
Obrigadão!
Nick
Hey Nick,
I’m glad you’re enjoying the site, and thanks for your suggestion! I had been thinking about posting the Portuguese lyrics — I’m going to try to find the best way to include them.
Abraço,
Victoria
Hi Victoria
I’m admiring your work here. I too have translated some MPB songs and am currently working on Chico Buarque’s lyrics. I wrote a book about him (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Simple-Brazilian-Song-Journeys-Through/dp/0349108498). I’d be interested to discuss your work and perhaps tell you about mine. I’m giving a talk on Chico in Cambridge (UK) in October. You can find me on Facebook. If my e-address shows up where you are, do mail me.
James
Hi Vitoria, a question regarding the live recordings of Gilberto Gil’s Domingo No Parque as seen on this longer version recording on Youtube http://youtu.be/nrstmBhpZts.
Why is Gil being booed practically all through the song? Is it because it was to innovative?
sorry for misspelling yr name :S
and many thanks for your answer! keep up the good work!
Hi “Perroverde” (I can’t see your name):
Yep, that’s right!
Booing was really common throughout the festivals. In this case, it was particularly bad because Gilberto Gil was playing such an innovative song and using electric guitars — part of what he and Caetano called their “universal sound” — which a lot of people thought had no place in Brazilian popular music.
In this story – Jornal da Tarde from Oct 4, 1967 (http://tinyurl.com/bofbpnc) – he says he’s prepared to be booed:
“I’m not worried. It would be easier if I were competing with songs like ‘Roda’ or ‘Louvação,’ my compositions that have already been accepted by the public. But that would be dishonest with myself and with the people, because [those songs] don’t represent my current way of thinking. I don’t do this as a challenge, I just think that all experiences/experiments are valid in music, seen in a universal manner.”
Hope this helps. Also, no worries about my name — that’s the way most people spell it here, anyway
Thanks for reading.
Awesome! Thank you very much for the info and your rapid response!
The video’s show a really ‘charged’ and electrifying atmosphere by the way, with the crowd wholeheartedly booing anyone that they didn’t like, and religiously chanting the lyrics with others (Chico Buarque’s Roda Viva). Was that a ‘selected’ audience? (as national television was state-run) or does it reflect the general attitude of the people towards their MBP in those days?
Many thanks again,
Oz
Hi Victoria, I really love Brazilian music, but I’m still learning (I started by buying a Toquinho album by accident!)
If you could please answer two questions, I would greatly appreciate it:
I searched for Dorival Caymmi’s song “Marina” here, but I could not find it. Could you please provide a translation of that song?
Secondly, the Sergio Mendes song “Lapinha” has one lyric with a strange word “besouro” — could you please translate this line and tell me what “besouro” means in that line? Surely, it cannot mean a beetle like the insect??? That doesn’t make sense. I’m thinking it must be a colloquial meaning or phrase:
Adeus Bahia, zum-zum-zum
Cordão de Ouro
Eu vou partir
Porque mataram meu besouro…
Thanks so much
Hi! Thanks so much for reading and for your comments. I will plan to translate Marina soon. And Lapinha is on the blog: http://lyricalbrazil.com/2012/06/19/lapinha/. Besouro was legendary capoeirista; he was killed when he was 24. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions.
I really appreciate your help. I never considered the possibility that “besouro” is the name of a person. I’ll look that up, thanks.
Marina is such a great song — I didn’t even know who Caymmi was until this week! I noticed he’s the author of a Santana song on their “Borboletta” album, “Promise of a Fisherman” and I looked him up.
Thanks again.
PS: I just read your explanation — thanks for all the details. I always wondered how a Brazilian got the name “Baden Powell”….!
And that one line in the song is very poignant –
Ai é tão desesperador
O amor perder do desamor
– is probably untranslatable, but I like your choice of “indifference” for “desamor”. Perhaps, though, “so disheartens” might work for “tão desesperador” better than “so maddening”…? I hesitate to even suggest anything, since you obviously know a million times more than me about Portuguese and Brazil!
Thanks again…
Translation of any song or interview by Criolo would be very much appreciated. I am studying an MSW degree right now and am quite interested in the LIberation Theology movement in Brazil, Paulo Freire in particular, and what some contemporary artists are saying/rapping about social justice. Word is Mr. Criolo has much to say and I would love to hear(read) more!
Thanks for “Marina”, Victoria! What a charmingly odd little song!
Hey, glad you liked the post! I´ll try to do the Toquinho song soon, too.
Hi Victoria, I’d love to know the meaning of another song — “Alô Alô” by Toquinho. If you can find the time, I would be so grateful.
Here are the Portuguese lyrics and a video:
http://letras.mus.br/toquinho/87158/
Thanks again,
biblio
Victoria, I was looking for reference material for an article about Gozanga because he would turn 100 years this week and then I was redirected by google to your website, and wow good job!Well done for you! All the cultural explanations before the lyrics are so well presented, I will take a look into the references that you recommend, keep up the great job!
Hi can you translate “voce e linda” by caetano Veloso? that would be awesome. I love that song!
Hi,
I don’t know if anyone could help me. Does anyone know of a master’s degree focused on Brazilian music? I’m looking for a study programme along those lines, and I’m not sure where to look and where to start from. I’m more into the music and lyrical content, however I might be interested in delving into the social link between the music and it’s people too. I’m considering other countries too, although I’m based in France.
Thanks in advance. Any help would be appreciated.
Francesca
Hi Frangale – the best programs I know of along these lines in the United States would be at Tulane University in New Orleans (with Christopher Dunn) and University of Florida (with Charles Perrone), but both would be Portuguese programs. I’m not sure of programs in France.
Victoria,
I am very impressed with your work. I worked in Brazil 1965-7 and 1969-70 and have periodically looked for the wonderful carnival songs I heard in those days, in Salvador and Curitiba.
5 years ago on Youtube one would only find some old guy plucking out the melodies on his verandah–or, more often: nothing. When I last visited, in 1995, you couldn’t buy the old songs in Rio and most young people didn’t seem to value Samba even. Pagode was all the rage. I had to do my own halting translations of the songs I could remember, eg: A banda, Tristezam, Quem nao gosta… A felicidade.
Ate hoje, tenho saudades do Brasil! Parabens para o website.
Mike
Thanks so much for your kind comments, Mike! I’m glad you’re enjoying the site,
Victoria
thank you so much for the literal translation of Insensatez,
It seems that “how insensitive” translates “Assim tão desalmado”?
Hi Gurkski, I’m glad you liked it. Yeah – no part of the song in Portuguese literally translates to “how insensitive”, but “tão desalmado” comes the closest (so soulless). Hope this helps!
“Please let me know if there is a song you would like translated or would like to hear more about!”
Cobra criado (the lyrics Elis Regina sings.. there are 2 different lyrics. I absolute adore elis and to understand her’s.
cheers
serge
We love the song Lapinha by Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66. Is there an English translation?
Caren
Hi Caren, Here’s the translation to Lapinha: http://lyricalbrazil.com/2012/06/19/lapinha/
Thanks for reading!
Hello Victoria , do you have any medium through which i can contact you directly ?
Hi, you can email me at Torysmail@gmail.com.
Hi Victoria,
Have you heard the version by US-born singer Karrin Allyson of the song “Faltando Um Pedaco” ? It’s amazingly beautiful. How did she learn Brazilian Portuguese so well!?
Could you please translate the lyrics to that song?
Lyrics:
http://letras.mus.br/djavan/45524/
Karrin Allyson on YouTube:
Why did you delete my comment?
I don’t delete comments on here, I just realized I hadn’t clicked “approve” yet.