—
Good Audio Version (João Gilberto)
—

I’ve never dreamed of you, I’ve never gone to the movies
I don’t like samba, I don’t go to Ipanema
I don’t like rain, I don’t like sun
I never called you up, why, if I knew?
I never attempted – and would never dare – the sweet nothings
That I learned with you
No, Lígia, Lígia

To go out with you holding hands on a serene afternoon
A cold beer in a bar in Ipanema
Walk along the beach down to Leblon
I’ve never fallen in love, I’d never be able to marry you
I would suffer such pain inevitably just to lose you in the end

You come close to me with your peculiar ways, and I say yes
But your brown eyes fill me with more fear than a ray of sun
Lígia, Lígia

– Interpretation–

Tom Jobim at Ipanema Beach, c. 1968

Tom Jobim used to say that any song with a woman’s name just stirred up trouble. He cited the case of Dorival Caymmi’s “Marina,” which provoked threats to Caymmi from an angry husband who thought the song had been written for his wife.

And indeed “Lígia” caused some problems for Tom, since the name happened to be the name of his close friend Fernando Sabino’s wife.

In interviews over the years following the release of “Ligia,” Tom avoided the subject or denied that the song was written for Sabino’s wife, Lygia Marina de Moraes. But in a 1988 interview with Ruy Castro for Playboy, Tom hinted that his denials could be interpreted in the same way as the denials in the song: “Fernando Sabino is a good friend, I get along really well with him and his wife, Lygia. They come to my house, I want all the best for them and, naturally, Lygia is a very beautiful woman and all that. What exists in  “Lígia” is the following: something that you deny so much that ultimately it turns into an affirmation – a supreme affirmation of love. ‘I’ve never dreamed of you, I’ve never gone to the cinema… when I called you… it was just an illusion, I ripped up your name.’ That is to say, I’m not even close to Lygia.”

Tom went so far as to say the song was about a pretty girl – the girlfriend of a friend of his – who used to go to bar Veloso (now Garota de Ipanema). But in 1994, after Lygia and Fernando separated and Tom passed away,  Lygia revealed the full story: She was out with a friend one day in 1968 and they ran into Tom, also with a friend, in Veloso. Tom began to flirt with Lygia, who turned out to be his daughter Elizabeth’s teacher.  She ended up accompanying Tom to an interview he was giving with Clarice Lispector. In the interview, Lispector challenged him to improvise a  poem that could become lyrics for a song, and the translation of the improvised poem goes as follows:

Teus olhos verdes são maiores que o mar/ Your green eyes are bigger than the sea
Se um dia eu fosse tão forte quanto você/ If one day I were as strong as you
Eu te desprezaria e viveria no espaço/ I would scorn you and would live in space
Ou talvez então eu te amasse/ Or maybe then I would love you
Ai que saudades que me dá
Da vida que eu nunca tive/ Oh how it makes me long for the life I never had

Lygia Moraes in Rio de Janeiro in 2011.

According to green-eyed Lygia, Tom dedicated the poem to her before they said goodbye, with a kiss on the cheek, in his car – the only time they went out alone together. (He was married to his first wife Thereza at the time.)  “The song tells of everything that never happened – the cinema, the walk down the beach,” Lygia revealed.  The eyes in the song probably turned from green to brown to rhyme, “estranho” and “castanho.”

At least in this case, Lygia’s story corroborates Tom’s insistence, in self-defense, that every song he wrote with a woman’s name was written for a woman he’d never slept with.

This song was first released in 1972 on the album Stan Getz e João Gilberto. Two years later,  Chico Buarque included it on his album Sinal Fechado, a collection of songs mostly by other composers which he recorded since the military censors had taken to banning almost all of the songs he submitted to them. (He wrote one song on the album, “Acorda Amor,” which he released under the pseudonym Julinho da Adelaide.) For the 1974 recording Chico and Tom changed the lyrics slightly, though Chico took no credit.

According to Lygia, Tom and Chico changed the lyrics about the phone call in this version because in 1973, Tom  called Fernando to ask for Lygia’s number and Fernando gave him the wrong number. On top of that, Fernando called people at the number he gave Tom and told them to give him another wrong number and pretend it was Lygia’s:

I’ve never dreamed of you, I’ve never gone to the cinema
I don’t like samba, I don’t go to Ipanema
I don’t like rain, I don’t like sun
And when I called you, I hung up, I’d dialed the wrong number
I don’t know your name
I left on the piano the sweet nothings that I was going to say to you
No, Lígia, Lígia
I never wanted to have you by my side
On a weekend, a cold beer in Copacabana
Walk along the beach down to Leblon
And when I fell in love it was nothing more than illusion
I tore up your name
I made a samba-song with the lies of love that I learned with you
Yes, Lígia, Lígia

And when you wrap me up in your serene arms I’m going to give in
But your brown (Moreno) eyes fill me with more fear than a ray of sun

Lyrics in Portuguese (1972)

Eu nunca sonhei com você
Nunca fui ao cinema
Não gosto de samba
Não vou a Ipanema
Não gosto de chuva
Nem gosto de sol
Eu nunca te telefonei
Para que se eu sabia
Eu jamais tentei
E jamais ousaria
As bobagens de amor
Que aprendi com você
Não, Lígia, Lígia

Sair com você de mãos dadas
Na tarde serena
Um chope gelado
Num bar de Ipanema
Andar pela praia até o Leblon
Eu nunca me apaixonei
Eu jamais poderia
Casar com você
Fatalmente eu iria
Sofrer tanta dor
Pra no fim te perder
Lígia, Lígia.

Você se aproxima de mim
Com esses modos estranhos
E eu digo que sim
Mas seus olhos castanhos
Me metem mais medo
Que um raio de sol
Lígia, Lígia.

Lyrics in Portuguese (1974)

Eu nunca sonhei com você
Nunca fui ao cinema
Não gosto de samba
Não vou a Ipanema
Não gosto de chuva
Nem gosto de sol
E quando eu lhe telefonei
Desliguei, foi engano
O seu nome eu não sei
Esqueci no piano
As bobagens de amor
Que eu iria dizer
Não, Ligia, Ligia

Eu nunca quis tê-la ao meu lado
Num fim de semana
Um chope gelado
Em Copacabana
Andar pela praia até o Leblon
E quando eu me apaixonei
Não passou de ilusão
O seu nome rasguei
Fiz um samba-canção
Das mentiras de amor
Que aprendi com você
Ligia, Ligia

E quando você me envolver
Nos seus braços serenos
Eu vou me render
Mas seus olhos morenos
Me metem mais medo
Que um raio de sol
Ligia, Ligia

Main source for this post: Histórias de Canções: Tom Jobim, by Wagner Homem and Luiz Roberto Oliveira.

“Volta por cima”

—
I cried, I didn’t try to hide it, everyone saw
They pretended to pity me, they needn’t have
There where I cried, anyone would cry
Come back out on top like I did, I’d like to see who could do that

A man of morale doesn’t stay on the ground
Nor does he want a woman to come give him a hand
He acknowledges the fall, but doesn’t despair
He gets up, shakes off the dust and comes back out on top

“Ronda”

—
At night I roam the city looking for you, without finding you
Amidst gazes, I peek into all the bars, and you’re not there
I return home dejected, disenchanted with life
Dreams bring happiness – you’re in them*
Oh if I had someone who cared for me dearly
That someone would tell me, ‘give up, it’s futile’
But I wouldn’t give up
Rather, with perfect patience, I go back to looking, I’m bound to find you
Drinking with other women, rolling dice, playing billiards
And that day, then, it’ll come out in the first edition:
“Bloody scene in a bar on Avenida São João”

– Interpretation –

Paulo Vanzolini, image via veja.abril.com.br.

Paulo Vanzolini died yesterday, April 28th, four days after his 89th birthday, of complications from pneumonia. He was both a beloved samba musician and one of Brazil’s most accomplished and world-renowned scientists – a zoologist specializing in reptiles.

Vanzolini liked to poke fun at himself as a musician, implying that he’d become a popular sambista in spite of himself: ”I work as a zoologist 15 hours a day and I love my job,” he told Folha de São Paulo in 1997. “I can’t sing and I don’t even know the difference between minor and major tones.” His air of blithe irreverence and his knack for managing to be at once politically incorrect and entirely lovable made him wildly popular, with the help of course of his compositions like “Volta por cima” and “Ronda,” two of the best known and most requested songs in music venues in his native São Paulo and around the country.

“Volta por cima” popularized the title phrase, which roughly means “come back out on top.” Vanzolini used to remark playfully that he only found out later that the then little-used phrase actually existed “officially” and was defined in Aurélio’s dictionary as “an act of overcoming, resolving a difficult situation.” He said he wrote the song to express a philosophy of life – “how I would like to be.” Vanzolini was on a research trip in the Amazon when the singer known as Noite Ilustrada recorded and released “Volta por cima,” which became an instant sensation. He was surprised when he returned to São Paulo to hear his song on the radio, on its way to becoming Noite Ilustrada’s greatest hit.

Vanzolini wrote “Ronda” when he was a young man in the army and often found himself rounding up drunken soldiers in bars and whorehouses. The song was first recorded in 1953 by the singer Inezita Barroso. Barroso was recording the song “Marvada Pinga” on a 45 record and needed a song for the B-side; Vanzolini, in the studio, offered up “Ronda.” But that record didn’t garner the public’s attention, and “Ronda” only became popular with its 1967 release by the singer Claúdia Moreno on the album of Vanzolini’s compositions, Onze sambas e uma capoeira. The public grew even more fond of “Ronda” with the singer Márcia‘s 1977 recording, which is the version in the YouTube video linked above.

In his typical spirit of light-hearted self-deprecation, Vanzolini called ”Volta por cima” a failure, lamenting, “No one understood that the important part isn’t to come out on top, it’s to acknowledge the fall.” Similarly, he categorized  ”Ronda” as something along the lines of “wretched drivel.”

*I’ve translated “o sono alegria me da – nele você está” as “dreams bring happiness – you’re in them,” but a more literal translation is “sleep brings happiness – you’re in it.”

Lyrics in Portuguese

“Volta por cima”

Chorei, não procurei esconder
Todos viram, fingiram
Pena de mim, não precisava
Ali onde eu chorei
Qualquer um chorava
Dar a volta por cima que eu dei
Quero ver quem dava
Um homem de moral não fica no chão
Nem quer que mulher
Venha lhe dar a mão
Reconhece a queda e não desanima
Levanta, sacode a poeira
E dá a volta por cima

“Ronda”

De noite eu rondo a cidade
A te procurar sem encontrar
No meio de olhares espio em todos os bares
Você não está
Volto pra casa abatida
Desencantada da vida
O sonho alegria me dá
Nele você está
Ah, se eu tivesse quem bem me quisesse
Esse alguém me diria
Desiste, esta busca é inútil
Eu não desistia
Porém, com perfeita paciência
Volto a te buscar
Hei de encontrar
Bebendo com outras mulheres
Rolando um dadinho
Jogando bilhar
E neste dia então
Vai dar na primeira edição
Cena de sangue num bar
Da avenida são joão

Main source for this post: A Canção no Tempo: 85 Anos de Músicas Brasileiras, vol 2:  1958-1985 by Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Mello

—
Good Audio Versions: João Gilberto, Gal Costa
—

[This] baiana, who goes into the samba and just stands there
Doesn’t samba, doesn’t dance, doesn’t move or nothing
Doesn’t know how to leave the youth in a craze

[The] baiana is the one who goes into the samba any which way
That moves, that shakes, twists her hips into a knot
Leaving the young’uns’ mouths watering

The phony baiana, when she goes into the samba,
No one goes out of their way, no one claps
No one opens the circle, no one yells “Oba, Salve a Bahia, Lord”
But we like it when a baiana dances samba just right
From the top on down, she rolls her little eyes, saying,
“I’m a daughter of São Salvador”

– Interpretation –

Dona Isaura, the wife of the composer Roberto Martins, takes the dubious honor of being the inspiration for this song. On the second to last night of Carnaval in 1944, Martins was at a bar chatting with Geraldo Pereira when Dona Isaura showed up, dressed up as a baiana (a woman from the state of Bahia, where the population is predominantly of African descent). In contrast to Bahian women, who are reputed for being joyful and exuding positive energy – and for knowing how to dance samba “just right” – Dona Isaura was in a sour mood that night, prompting her husband to observe to Geraldo, “Check out the phony baiana.” Martins’s observation got Pereira thinking about how to distinguish a true baiana from an impostor, and he wrote his greatest hit based on that premise.

What would appear to be a true baiana, dancing.

Pereira’s innovative style of syncopated samba and the rhythm within the lyrics themselves had a strong influence on João Gilberto, who, in turn, went on the make this song doubly famous with his bossa nova version, released on the 1973 LP João Gilberto.  

Geraldo Pereira was born in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais,  in 1918, and moved to Rio de Janeiro’s renowned Morro da Mangueira  in 1930. He died in 1955, at age 37, from a hemorrhage caused by a fight with an almost mythical marginal figure of the carioca night, the drag artist and capoeirista known as Madame Satã (Madam Satan).

How to dress up as a falsa baiana.

Lyrics in Portuguese

Baiana que entra no samba e só fica parada
Não samba, não dança, não bole nem nada
Não sabe deixar a mocidade louca
Baiana é aquela que entra no samba de qualquer maneira
Que mexe, remexe, dá nó nas cadeiras
Deixando a moçada com água na boca

A falsa baiana quando entra no samba
Ninguém se incomoda, ninguém bate palma
Ninguém abre a roda, ninguém grita ôba
Salve a bahia, senhor

Mas a gente gosta quando uma baiana
Samba direitinho, de cima embaixo
Revira os olhinhos dizendo
Eu sou filha de são salvador

Main source for this post: A Canção no Tempo: 85 Anos da músicas brasileiras by Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Melo

—
Good Audio Versions: Súplica, O poder da criação, Minha missão
—

“Súplica”

The body, death takes away
The voice vanishes in the wind
Pain rises into the darkness
The name, the works immortalize
Death blesses the spirit, the breeze brings music
Which in life, is always the strongest light
Which illuminates life beyond death
Come to me, oh music, come in the air
Hear my plea from where you are
I know well it may not be the only one
Come to me, oh music, come dry the people’s tears
Everyone already suffers too much, help the world to live in peace

“O poder da criação”

No, no one makes samba just because they choose to
No force in the world interferes with the power of creation
No, it’s not necessary to be happy, nor afflicted
Nor to take refuge in the most beautiful place in search of inspiration
No, it’s a light that comes all of a sudden, with the speed of a falling star
That ignites the mind and the heart
Yes, it makes one think there’s a greater force that guides us
That’s in the air
It comes in the middle of the night, or in the light of day
It comes to torment us

And the poet lets himself be carried away by that magic
And a verse starts to come, and a melody starts to come
And the people begin to sing… Lalalaiá….

“Minha missão”

When I sing, it’s to alleviate my tears
And the tears of those who’ve already suffered so much
When I sing, I feel the radiance of a saint
I’m kneeling at the feet of God
I sing to announce the day, I sing to brighten up the night
I sing to denounce the scourge, I also sing against tyranny
I sing because in a melody I kindle in the heart of the people
The hope for a new world, and the struggle to live in peace

Of the Poder da Criação (power of creation), I’m a continuation
And I want to express gratitude that my Súplica (plea) was heard
I’m a messenger of music
My song is a mission, it has the force of prayer
And I fulfill my duty to those who live in tears
I live to sing, and I sing to live

When I sing, death runs through me
And I belt out a song from my throat
Cause the cicada, when it sings, dies
And wood when it dies, sings

– Interpretation –

João Nogueira and Paulo César Pinheiro (seated) composed over 50 sambas together. They celebrated their partnership with the release of the album Parcerias in 1994, which features 17 of their top hits.

This trilogy was inspired  by an argument that Paulo César Pinheiro witnessed one day at Odeon Records in Rio de Janeiro. Pinheiro looked on as a grumpy director at the studio scolded a maestro who had let his cigarette ashes fall on the floor. The studio was swank and sparkling; Prince Charles had been flown in to inaugurate it. But as Paulo César Pinheiro watched the tiff between director and maestro, he reflected on how silly it was: The posh studio that the director was so concerned with protecting would be gone one day, and the names on a plaque on the wall, including Prince Charles’s, would fade away. The music that was being recorded there was what really mattered –  it would last forever, and immortalize the artists’ names.

The three songs in the trilogy are dedicated to three essential moments in the process of composing a song: a reverence for music, which inspires the desire to compose; the moment of creation; and the act of singing the song. The last line of “Minha missão” is a common saying in Brazil, referring to the process of making a wooden instrument that begins with the death of a tree and ends with the music made by the instrument.

Paulo César Pinheiro produced some of Brazil’s best-loved songs with 5 generations of composers. João Nogueira, Pinheiro’s closest partner alongside Mauro Duarte, summed up  Pinheiro’s ability to work with such a variety of partners with a remark in 1980: “Paulinho, in truth, is a partner of Brazilian music.”

Paulo César Pinheiro (b. Rio de Janeiro, 28 April 1949) is a renowned composer and lyricist who became highly sought after as a partner after the success of “Lapinha” (1968), which he composed with Baden Powell. He has worked with five generations of musicians, from Pixinguinha, who would be around 116 today, to Joaquim Carrilho, 17, the son of Mauricio Carrilho.  But he emphasizes that he barely noticed the changes in generations because throughout his career, his sole focus as a lyricist has been to remain faithful to whatever music he’s working with.

Following this simple principle, he has released over 1200 songs, sung by Brazil’s most celebrated singers, and has around 800 yet unreleased.  His participation in the composition process has varied from song to song:  In some cases he only composed lyrics; in others, he built on top of lyrics that were already written (this was the case with “Lapinha”, which already had a refrain that Baden Powell had adapted from a folk chant); sometimes he composed pieces of melody, as well; and he has released a number of songs that are fully his own. His partnership with João Nogueira is representative: It began with “Espelho,” an ode to Nogueira’s father, which Nogueira gave to his friend Pinheiro with lyrics partially written. In the 1970s, Nogueira delivered complete melodies to Pinheiro for him to write the lyrics (including “Eu, hein, Rosa!” and “Batendo a porta“) and by the 1980s, Pinheiro began some of the songs himself, including the sambas in this trilogy. He showed them to Nogueira with the melody and lyrics partially written, and asked Nogueira to add to the melody, at which point he then contributed more lyrics.

João Nogueira (12 November 1941 – 5 June 2000) grew up in the Méier neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, where he began composing sambas at the age of 15 for the neighborhood’s Carnival bloco.  He identified himself as a “sidewalk sambista” – like Noel Rosa – rather than a “hillside sambista” like Cartola and Nelson Cavaquinho. He released his first album with Odeon Records (EMI) in 1972, but major critical and popular success came in 1974 with the release of his second LP, E Lá Vou Eu, which included  ”Eu, hein, Rosa!” and “Batendo a porta.” His samba gripped the public because it was different from the hillside and Carnaval samba school styles, and also different from the “beachside apartment” style of composers like Tom Jobim and Carlos Lyra.  Rather, his sambas evoked traditional suburban Rio de Janeiro and its “homes with verandas” where choro and seresta had reigned in the earlier part of the century.

João and Paulo Pinheiro met through João’s older sister Gisa, who was a friend of Baden Powell’s sister and Paulo’s friend, Vera. Gisa introduced Paulo to her brother João, and the two quickly became “partners of the bohemian life.” Paulo liked João’s music from the start, but the two did not work together until a couple of years later, when João asked Paulo to help him with the lyrics for a song he was composing in honor of his father, who had passed away when he was a boy. The song, “Espelho,” was released in 1977.  João Nogueira died of a heart attack in 2000, at age 58, and his son, the sambista Diogo Nogueira, now performs the song “Espelho” frequently. Many fans think it was Diogo who wrote it for his father.

Lyrics in Portuguese

“Súplica”

O corpo a morte leva
A voz some na brisa
A dor sobre pras trevas
O nome a obra imortaliza

A morte benze o espírito
A brisa traz a música
Que na vida é sempre a luz mais forte
E ilumina a gente além da morte

Vem a mim, ó música!
Vem no ar
Ouve de onde estás a minha súplica
Que eu bem sei talvez não seja a única
Vem a mim, ó música!
Vem secar do povo as lágrimas
Que todos já
Sofrem demais
E ajuda o mundo a viver em paz

“O poder da criação”

Não, ninguém faz samba só porque prefere
Força nenhuma no mundo interfere
Sobre o poder da criação
Não, não precisa se estar nem feliz nem aflito
Nem se refugiar em lugar mais bonito
Em busca da inspiração

Não, ela é uma luz que chega de repente
Com a rapidez de uma estrela cadente
E acende a mente e o coração
É, faz pensar
Que existe uma força maior que nos guia
Que está no ar
Vem no meio da noite ou no claro do dia
Chega a nos angustiar
E o poeta se deixa levar por essa magia
E um verso vem vindo e vem vindo uma melodia
E o povo começa a cantar!

“Minha missão”

Quando eu canto
É para aliviar meu pranto
E o pranto de quem já
Tanto sofreu
Quando eu canto
Estou sentindo a luz de um santo
Estou ajoelhando
Aos pés de Deus
Canto para anunciar o dia
Canto para amenizar a noite
Canto pra denunciar o açoite
Canto também contra a tirania
Canto porque numa melodia
Acendo no coração do povo
A esperança de um mundo novo
E a luta para se viver em paz!

Do poder da criação
Sou continuação
E quero agradecer
Foi ouvida minha súplica
Mensageiro sou da música
O meu canto é uma missão
Tem força de oração
E eu cumpro o meu dever
Aos que vivem a chorar
Eu vivo pra cantar
E canto pra viver

Quando eu canto, a morte me percorre
E eu solto um canto da garganta
Que a cigarra quando canta morre
E a madeira quando morre, canta!

Main sources for this post: A Letra Brasileira de Paulo César Pinheiro, by Conceição Campos; Histórias das Minhas Canções by Paulo César Pinheiro; and this interview with Paulo César Pinheiro.

—
Good Audio Version (Marcos Valle and Milton Nascimento)
—

The hand that plays a guitar, if necessary, makes war
Kills the world, wounds the earth.
The voice that sings a song, if necessary, sings a hymn
Exalts death.
Viola on a moonlit night in the backlands is like a sword
Hope for vengeance.
The same foot that dances a samba, if necessary, goes to combat
Capoeira
He who has a companion at night knows that peace is fleeting
To defend her he gets up and screams:  I’ll go!
Hand, guitar, song and sword
And moonlit viola
Through the countryside and city
Flag bearer, capoeira, marching they go on singing,
Liberty, liberty, liberty…

– Interpretation –

Album cover for Viola Enluarada (1968)

The viola referred to in this song is different from the violin-like instrument that most English speakers know as a viola. In Brazilian music, viola almost always refers to a plucked twelve-string acoustic  guitar that’s associated with the countryside.  ”Companion” is used in the feminine, and “to defend her he gets up and screams…” could refer to both the companion and peace.

In 1967, Marcos Valle was in New York recording the album Samba 68. It was his longest stay yet in the United States, and he was looking on from afar during a particularly dark time in Brazil, as the military dictatorship that had seized power in 1964 tightened its grip over society in the months prior to the decree of AI-5. Yearning for home, Marcos composed this distinctly Brazilian melody. When he returned to Brazil, he brought the tune to his eldest brother and partner, Paulo Sérgio Valle, who wrote the lyrics.  Soon after, Marcos met Milton Nascimento at Tom Jobim‘s house in Leblon, and the two sang the song together. They made a perfect pair; the song suited Milton – it even seemed like it could be one of his own.

Among protest songs from the 1960s and 1970s, “Viola Enluarada” stands out for having not only a powerful political message but also a rich, intricate melody. (Many protest songs, perhaps most notoriously “Caminhando/Pra não dizer que não falei das flores” by Geraldo Vandré, were known for having rousing lyrics set to very simple melodies.)  Marcos and Milton released “Viola Enluarada” – with an arrangement by Dori Caymmi  - as a single in 1968.  By that time, stores already had long waiting lists for the single, which the tremendously popular group Quarteto em Cy had been singing in their shows. The song also became the title track for Marcos’s next album, and in the early 70s was adopted as a sort of hymn by the Araguaia guerrillas, who had taken up arms against the military dictatorship.

Lyrics in Portuguese

A mão que toca um violão
Se for preciso faz a guerra,
Mata o mundo, fere a terra.
A voz que canta uma canção
Se for preciso canta um hino,
Louva à morte.
Viola em noite enluarada
No sertão é como espada,
Esperança de vingança.
O mesmo pé que dança um samba
Se preciso vai à luta,
Capoeira.
Quem tem de noite a companheira
Sabe que a paz é passageira,
Prá defendê-la se levanta
E grita: Eu vou!
Mão, violão, canção e espada
E viola enluarada
Pelo campo e cidade,
Porta bandeira, capoeira,
Desfilando vão cantando
Liberdade.
Quem tem de noite a companheira
Sabe que a paz é passageira,
Prá defendê-la se levanta
E grita: Eu vou!
Porta bandeira, capoeira,
Desfilando vão cantando
Liberdade.
Liberdade, liberdade, liberdade…

Main sources for this post: A Canção no Tempo: 85 Anos de Músicas Brasileiras, vol. 2: 1958 – 1985 by Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Mello,  and Songbook: Marcos Valle, by Almir Chediak.

—
Good Audio Version (Jair Rodrigues)
—

(I want to sing again…)

Sorrow
Please, go away
My soul that cries
Is foreseeing my end
You made my heart into your home
My suffering has already gone too far
I want to go back to that life of joy
I want to sing again

La da la la…

I want to sing again…

– Interpretation –

“Tristeza” was released by Ari Cordovil in 1966, but the best loved rendition came from Jair Rodrigues, who sang it live on the program “O Fino da Bossa.”

This was the last traditional samba to win Carnival before the style was totally displaced by sambas-enredo (sambas that tell a story), the samba schools’ parade themes.

The song’s release in early 1966 turned out to be sadly appropriate:  The year started out with catastrophic flooding and landslides that killed 250 people and left around fifty thousand homeless in Rio de Janeiro; January 2, 1966, held the record for rainfall in the greater metropolitan region of Rio until April 2010. This video shows images of the destruction. The rain destroyed some samba schools’ studios and supplies, and there was speculation that the city’s Carnival celebrations would be cancelled that year. These circumstances made the song all the more resonant.

“Tristeza” began as a lengthy samba by Niltinho (Nilton de Souza,b. 1936), who was just starting out as a composer in the early 1960s.  He wrote it after a fight with his future wife left him quite glum and a friend told him to “send that sorrow away.” In 1965, the celebrated Carnival composer Haroldo Lobo heard the original, longer version and liked it. He cut it down – from 18 lines to 8 – and incorporated some pieces from an old melody he had composed, and the song was released in 1966 by Ari Cordovil.  It became Lobo’s last great hit – a posthumous one, he died in 1965 – and was so popular that from then on, Niltinho became known as “Niltinho Tristeza.” In 1967, Norman Gimbel released an English version,  “Goodbye Sadness.”

Lyrics in Portuguese

Tristeza
Por favor vai embora
Minha alma que chora
Está vendo o meu fim
Fez do meu coração a sua moradia
Já é demais o meu penar
Quero voltar aquela vida de alegria
Quero de novo cantar
Lá, rá, lá, rá
Lá, rá, lá, rá, lá, rá, rá
Lá, rá, lá, rá, lá, rá, rá
Quero de novo cantar

Main source for this post: A Canção no Tempo: 85 Anos de Músicas Brasileiras, vol 2: 1958-1985 by Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Mello

Oh, gardening girl, why are you so sad?
Why, what has befallen you?

It was the camellia that fell from the branch, gasped twice and then died… (repeat)

Come, gardening girl, come, my love!
Don’t stay sad — this world is all yours.
You are much lovelier than the camellia that died.

– Interpretation –

Carnival revelers in Rio de Janeiro, 1939. Image via Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro.

“A Jardineira” was a hit in Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival of 1939, and has since proven an enduring popular favorite. The song, a marchinha (a style described in this post), was recorded by Orlando Silva - “the greatest Brazilian singer of all time” according to João Gilberto - and it qualified for Rio de Janeiro’s official Carnival contest in 1939.

Image via A História Vai ao Cinema.

The Carnival contest was organized by the Rio City Council and the Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP),the most fascist agency in Getulio Vargas’s authoritarian Estado Novo regime. After the regime’s establishment in 1937, the DIP had taken control of many aspects of Carnival festivities and popular music more broadly.

Also in the running for best marcha was “Florisbela,” by Frazão and Nássara, sung by Silvio Caldas. That year, organizers had decided the competition would be judged by popular vote, rather than a jury. Martins, Nássara, and Caldas saw an opportunity: they gathered famous friends around the entrances to voting booths to encourage arriving voters to pick “Florisbela,” perhaps in exchange for an autograph. Unsurprisingly, “Florisbela” won the marcha category, and another of Nássara’s submissions – the samba “Meu consolo é você,” composed with Roberto Martins and sung by Orlando Silva – took the prize for best samba.

Benedito Lacerda was outraged.  But according to Silva, he need not have worried: In an interview recorded before his death in 1978, Silva points out that “A Jardineira” traversed generations in a way that “Florisbela” didn’t, adding,  ”When the dance gets a little cold, the maestro brings ‘Jardineira’ and everyone, even tables get up and dance.” 

“A Jardineira” – a lighthearted allegory for romantic heartache – and “Florisbela” are both mentioned in Ary Barroso’s 1939 hit “Camisa Amarela.”

For readers interested in more of the history:

Part of the song’s immediate and immense popularity may have been due to its familiarity to many people.  ”A Jardineira” was a popular folk song in Bahia; Humberto Porto heard it in Mar Grande, Bahia, in 1937, and used the refrain for these lyrics, which he brought back to Rio de Janeiro for Benedito Lacerda to put to music. (In the same interview mentioned above, Orlando Silva says he “went crazy” with glee upon hearing Lacerda’s tune for the first time.)

In 1966, the Brazilian journalist Jota Efegê wrote that “A Jardineira” had already been introduced in Rio de Janeiro in 1899 by Hilário Jovino Ferreira, who had also learned the song in Bahia. Jovino’s version then inspired other arrangements like “A Flor da Jardineira,” “As Filhas da Jardineira,” and “O Triunfo da Camélia” (The Camellia’s Triumph), which brought renewed popularity to the song around the first decade of the last century.

Orlando Silva, via WordPress user linnekeralmeida

Orlando Silva (1915 – 1978), known in Brazil as “the singer of the masses,” was born in Rio de Janeiro to poor parents. His father, a railroad worker and choro guitarist, died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, when Orlando was three. Orlando soon began working, delivering lunch pails around the neighborhood. Throughout his childhood, those close to him were impressed by his voice and natural inclination to perform; he used to take musical scores with him to school and study them at snack time to memorize the lyrics, and he spent countless hours at a neighbor’s house where he could listen to Francisco Alves on her radio.

When Silva was eighteen, his older brother convinced him to audition to be a professional radio singer. After several frustrated attempts to try out, Silva was heard by the composer Bororó at Rádio Cajuti, who said he realized “in two seconds” that Silva was a magnificent singer. Bororó brought him to sing before his idol, Francisco Alves, and soon after, Orlando was singing on Alves’s new radio show;  Alves inaugurated the program by introducing Silva as his “discovery.”

Silva immediately became tremendously popular. Songwriters battled to have him record their new releases. In this documentary, Cauby Peixoto says “Brazil stopped” when Silva’s voice transmitted over the radio. He was a sort of Brazilian radio-era Elvis: throngs of enamored women tore his clothes for keepsakes.

Orlando Silva, via brasilwiki.com.br.

Sadly, this success was short-lived. By the early 1940s, Brazilian radio stations began reducing airtime for singers to make more time for news broadcasts on World War II. Meanwhile, Silva suffered a traumatic romantic experience and painful illnesses that left him dependent on morphine and addicted to cocaine and alcohol. His vocal chords quickly deteriorated. In 1946 he was let go from Rádio Nacional and Odeon Records.

Rádio Nacional invited him back in the beginning of the 1950s, but by then the decline of radio in Brazil was already underway, and Silva’s voice was not the same.  Still, Silva had profoundly influenced rising stars like João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, and Paulinho da Viola - who said, “after hearing Orlando singing arrangements by Pixinguinha and Radamés Gnatalli, I don’t need to hear anything else.”

Camellia, via blog-terraviva.blogspot.com.

Lyrics in Portuguese

Oh! jardineira porque estás tão triste?
Mas o que foi que te aconteceu?
Foi a camélia que caiu do galho,
Deu dois suspiros e depois morreu.

Vem jardineira! Vem meu amor!
Não fiques triste que este mundo é todo seu.
Tu és muito mais bonita
Que a camélia que morreu.

Main sources for this post:  A Canção no Tempo: 85 Anos de Músicas Brasileiras, vol. 1: 1901 – 1957, by Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Mello; Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil by Bryan McCann; Almanaque do samba, by André Diniz; the documentary Mosaicos: a arte de Orlando Silva (available on YouTube in Portuguese); and this blog post from Revista Piauí.

—
Good Audio Version (Chico Buarque)
—

For those who see me just standing there, distant
Who guarantee I don’t know how to samba
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes

I’m just watching, knowing, feeling, hearing – and I can’t speak
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes
I see the china legs of the girl who passes – and I can’t touch
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes
How long I’ve desired her kiss, wet with passionfruit
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes

And for those who offend me, humiliate me, step on me
Thinking I’ll put up with it
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes
And for those who see me taking beatings in life
Who doubt I’ll reply in kind
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes
I see the first beam of day emerging, asking us to sing
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes

I have so much joy postponed, suffocated
Oh what I’d give to scream

I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes
I’m saving myself for when Carnival comes…

– Interpretation –

Album cover for the soundtrack to the 1972 musical Quando o Carnaval Chegar.

In 1972, Brazil was in the midst of the period known as the Anos de Chumbo (Years of Lead) following the decree of Institutional Act 5 (AI-5) at the end of 1968.  The president, military general Emílio Médici, was one of the most repressive of the military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 – 1985.  As Médici stepped up censorship, repression, persecution and torture in his ostensible effort to prepare Brazil for a return to democracy, he boasted of the “Brazilian Miracle” – consecutive years of annual GDP growth surpassing 10% – in spite of figures showing skyrocketing poverty and inequality in the country.

Meanwhile, by 1972 a number of artists who had left Brazil in fear or protest in the wake of AI-5  had returned from exile, and were doing their best to produce music and films (and thus make a living) despite these inauspicious conditions.  Chico Buarque had returned from exile in Italy in 1970; Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were back from London; and likewise,  Carlos “Cacá” Diegues, the celebrated Cinema Novo director, and his wife, singer Nara Leão (known as the “muse of bossa nova”) were  back in Brazil after over a year in Paris.

Maria Bethânia and Chico on the painted schoolbus.

Diegues enlisted Buarque’s help to write the soundtrack for his experimental musical Quando o Carnaval Chegar , (full movie available here - but without subtitles) and this song was the title track.  Buarque starred in the musical alongside Caetano’s sister, Maria Bethânia, and Nara Leão. The three singers play a hapless trio of radio performers who spend much of their time riding a painted school bus around Brazil. They’re driven by Cuíca, a black cuíca player from the favela, and guided by the whims of their slick, flamboyant producer, Lourival, who has arranged for them to sing at a “party for a king” and struggles to keep the troupe together for the party in spite of new loves, jealousies and broken hearts. The movie portrays the extravagance and false hopes of the so-called Brazilian Miracle years and the anticipation of new beginnings with the arrival of Carnival. It is the only Cinema Novo musical, and a chanchada - a campy musical comedy style that was popular in Brazil from the 1930s – 1950s.

Diegues was aligned politically and artistically with the  Centro Popular de Cultura, a collective of artists who sought to create a “democratic national popular culture” by  educating the popular classes through revolutionary art. To that end,  he attempted to appeal to a wide audience with his movies, thus drawing criticism from factions of the political left who favored ideological purity at the expense of popular appeal in the arts. In 1978, Diegues stirred up controversy when he referred to such critics as “ideological patrols.”  Regardless, this film was not Diegues’s greatest success with critics or crowds. But the title track has become one of Chico Buarque’s best loved songs in Brazil, even more so in the weeks preceding Carnival.

The song begins by contrasting the singer’s subdued, somber, and highly restricted day-to-day existence with the liberty that Carnival will bring. The metaphors for censorship and repression – and the euphoria that will come when the offenders get their comeuppance and all of this “postponed joy” is released – grow clearer at the end of the song, and recall Chico’s most famous protest song (which he calls his only true protest song), “Apesar de você.”

These days, outside of its original political context, the song represents a larger, universal human sentiment of yearning for a more carefree life where sensibility, sincerity and personal liberty are supreme.

Lyrics in Portuguese

Quem me vê sempre parado,
Distante garante que eu não sei sambar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

Eu tô só vendo, sabendo,
Sentindo, escutando e não posso falar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

Eu vejo as pernas de louça
Da moça que passa e não posso pegar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

Há quanto tempo desejo seu beijo
Molhado de maracujá…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

E quem me ofende, humilhando, pisando,
Pensando que eu vou aturar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

E quem me vê apanhando da vida,
Duvida que eu vá revidar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

Eu vejo a barra do dia surgindo,
Pedindo pra gente cantar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

Eu tenho tanta alegria, adiada,
Abafada, quem dera gritar…
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar

Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar
Tô me guardando pra quando o carnaval chegar…

Main sources for this post: Revolução do Cinema Novo by Glauber Rocha; Chico Buarque do Brasil, ed. Rinaldo de Fernandes; Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization, ed. Charles Perrone and Christopher Dunn; and this blog post.

—
Good Audio Version (Pena Branca and Xavantinho with Renato Teixeira)
—

Every day the sun rises
And we sing to the sun of each day

Late afternoon, the land is painted
And we weep because the afternoon is gone

When it’s night, the gentle moon
And we dance, worshiping the night

Late at night, sky of stars
And we sleep, dreaming of them

– Interpretation –

The album cover for Caetano Veloso’s 1975 album Jóia features the sun, moon, birds, and Caetano looking primitive.

Caetano Veloso recorded “Canto do povo de um lugar” – which translates to “Song of a people from a place” – for his 1975 album Jóia.  The song’s folkloric style and lyrics evoke, or even exalt, a simple rural way of life that revolves around the sun, moon and stars. In this way, the song combines Caetano’s nostalgic style and his tendency at the time to focus on metaphysical wonders and people’s veneration of nature.

The song’s style and theme also held an element of protest.  In 1975, the country’s military leaders were consumed with a pursuit of economic growth and full industrialization at whatever cost, and the lives of well-to-do urbanites seemed governed by stiff conventions and material acquisitions. Between 1968 and 1973 – some of the most repressive years of military rule – Brazil’s economy grew at an average rate of over 10 percent. Leaders and the press called it the “Brazilian miracle.” Meanwhile, the country’s wealth became more highly concentrated, and rural populations suffered from both destitution and discrimination. Popular singers including Caetano Veloso, Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil and Geraldo Vandré  incorporated themes of regional, backcountry life in their music, and performed and praised the music of Luiz Gonzaga - whom Gil called the first spokesperson for the marginalized culture of the northeast - in large measure to draw attention to the plight of rural populations.

Still, “Canto do povo de um lugar” tends more toward nostalgia and wonder than protest, and since its release it has become a treasured folk song in Brazil.

The album Jóia comprises mostly serene acoustic recordings like this one, which, along with others on the LP – “Na asa do vento” (On the wind’s wing), “Asa, asa” (Wing, wing), and “Lua, lua lua” (Moon, moon, moon) – express a reverence for nature and its relationship with music, rhythm and song.  The latter two also illustrate Caetano’s affinity with the concrete poetry movement. In “Asa, asa,” the word “passaro” (bird) serves as the song’s foundation; it is repeated over and over paired with different words or split in different ways so as to make the narrative flow over the backdrop of an unvarying beat. “Lua, lua, lua” recalls the poem “branco…” by one of the leaders of the movement, Haroldo de Campos.

In the versions of “Canto do povo de um lugar” linked above the final verse is left out.

Lyrics in Portuguese

Todo dia o sol levanta
E a gente canta
Ao sol de todo dia

Fim da tarde a terra cora
E a gente chora
Porque finda a tarde

Quando a noite a lua mansa
E a gente dança
Venerando a noite

Madrugada, céu de estrelas
E a gente dorme
sonhando com elas.

Main sources for this post:  Balanço da Bossa e outras bossas by Augusto de Campos and Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song: 1965 – 1985 by Charles Perrone

—
Good Audio Version (Elis Regina)
—

I’m familiar with each step along this road
I know it goes nowhere
I know its secrets by heart
I’m familiar with the stones in the path
And I know, too, that there, alone,
I’m going to end up so much the worse
What can I do to fight the enchantment
Of this love that I deny so much, I avoid so much
And that, nevertheless, always recasts its spell
With its same sad old facts that, in a picture album, I insist on collecting

Here I go again, like a fool, seeking the despondency
Of whose acquaintance I’ve grown weary
New sad days, sleepless nights
Verses, letters, my dear
And still I write to you again, to tell you this is a sin
My breast is so scored with memories from the past
And you know the reason
I’m going to collect one more sonnet, another portrait in white and black
To mistreat my heart

– Interpretation –

Chico Buarque (L), Tom Jobim, and Vinicius de Moraes. Photo via Catraca Livre.

This was the first song that Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque worked on together, and its instrumental version has become a jazz standard.

Chico Buarque (standing) and Tom Jobim.

Jobim and Buarque were introduced in 1964 or 1965, as Chico recalls, by the music producer Aloísio de Oliveira; later, their mutual friend and partner Vinicius de Moraes brought them closer. In 1967 Tom asked Chico to write the lyrics to this song, which he’d already released in its instrumental version as “Zíngaro,” meaning gypsy. (The use of half tones in the first verses evokes a certain aimlessness.)

Chico was nervous.  He had only written lyrics for one song that was not his own – a partnership with his close friend Toquinho, “Lua Cheia” – and he was unsure of his talents as a lyricist.  But he recounts that at this point, Tom treated him more like a pupil than a partner, offering effusive encouragement and telling him that his lyrics were simply splendid.

As Charles Perrone points out in Seven Faces: Brazilian Poetry since Modernism, Chico’s sonnetlike lyrics, with two fourteen-line stanzas, recall Vinicius de Moraes’s romantic poems, which is not surprising since Chico had grown up admiring Vinicius, a close friend of his father, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda.

Tom’s only question – which you, too, may have wondered –  was why they should use “portrait in white and black” when everyone says “black and white.” Chico defended his phrasing by suggesting that, were the word order reversed, the only word he might rhyme with “branco” (white) would be “tamanco” – a wood-soled shoe. Tom preferred the singer collect another sonnet, and not a shoe.

Chico, for his part, tried to change the lyrics shortly before recording, asking Tom if they might substitute the words “peito tão marcado” – translated here as “breast so scored” – with “peito carregado”, or heavy breast; he said he’d used “so” in the first version merely as a crutch. But for Tom, Chico’s suggested change called to mind a tuberculosis patient, since “peito” means both breast and chest in Portuguese, and “carregado” can mean gloomy or heavy, but can also mean full, loaded, or in some cases, congested. So they stuck with the original lyrics, and João Gilberto recorded the song in 1968. (Here he is singing it.)

As the pair continued working together, Tom abandoned his accepting attitude and second-guessed many of Chico’s lyrics. In the following posts you can read about their spirited spats over the lyrics for ”Piano na Mangueira” and ”Sabiá.”

Lyrics in Portuguese

Já conheço os passos dessa estrada
Sei que não vai dar em nada
Seus segredos sei de cor
Já conheço as pedras do caminho
E sei também que ali sozinho
Eu vou ficar, tanto pior
O que é que eu posso contra o encanto
Desse amor que eu nego tanto
Evito tanto
E que no entanto
Volta sempre a enfeitiçar
Com seus mesmos tristes velhos fatos
Que num álbum de retrato
Eu teimo em colecionar

Lá vou eu de novo como um tolo
Procurar o desconsolo
Que cansei de conhecer
Novos dias tristes, noites claras
Versos, cartas, minha cara
Ainda volto a lhe escrever
Pra dizer que isso é pecado
Eu trago o peito tão marcado
De lembranças do passado
E você sabe a razão
Vou colecionar mais um soneto
Outro retrato em branco e preto
A maltratar meu coração

Main sources for this post:  Interviews with Chico Buarque on Tom Jobim’s website and Histórias de Canções: Tom Jobim, by Wagner Homem and Luiz Roberto Oliveira.