If you want to arrest a thief
You can go back the way you came
The thief is hiding down below
Behind a tie and a collar
Just because I live on the hill
You awake my misery
The truth is I walk around hungry
I never stole from anyone, I’m a working man
If there’s a bank robbery
How is it that you can’t arrest the powerful boss
Cause the newspapers are saying that only theives live on the hills
…..
On the hill no one has a mansion
Not a house in the countryside for the summer
Not a yacht for a maritime ride
Nor a private plane
We are victims of a society
That is notorious and full of mischief
On the hill no one has millions of dollars
Deposited in a Swiss bank
The following is from the Brazilian magazine Bravo (in PT), which I translated, about fan of Caetano Veloso who not only got to meet him, but to get his song recorded by him.
I was 7 when I first saw and heard Caetano Veloso sing Alegria, Alegria with the Beat Boys at the Record Festival, in 1967. At home, we were all hypnotized by Chico Buarque singing Roda Viva. Chico and the song were beautiful. But I, a fan of Roberto Carlos, felt the Jovem Guarda vibe in the marcha-rock of Caetano, which seemed restrained and transgressive. Happiness and laziness – that yeah-yeah-yeah group and and a timidly daring singer with eyes full of color. It was the start.
From then til now, I became a musician of popular music and Caetano, a reference for my generation. In 1977, one decade after Alegria, Alegria, I was studying at the Colégio Equipe, in São Paulo, where the current-day host Serginho Goisman used to organize shows. I was his assistant and ticket-seller. On account of this little job, I got to fetch Cartola and Clementina de Jesus from the bus station, I handed over the payment to Luiz Gonzaga for his appearance and I bought a cognac at the bakery so Gilberto Gil could warm up his voice. Later, it was Caetano’s turn to go to the Equipe. He opened the show with Festa Imodesta, a samba that he composed and that Chico recorded on his album Sinal Fechado. At that time, I also started to compose and I immodestly imagined that Caetano one day would sing one of my songs. But, as time went by, I ended up redirecting my insane desire.
In 2008, when Caetano and the anthropologist Hermano Vianna launched the blog Obra em Progresso, I started to frequent their virtual hang-out and to comment on the posts. Caetano would write with an incredible appetite. Everything was fair game: Noel Rosa, Fidel Castro, sociolinguistics. A group of about 20 people, more sedulous, created an incendiary intimacy among themselves and Caetano would very informally comment on our messages. It was then that a collective was born which came to be called “the blog group”.
One year later, the group went to the premier of zii e zie, Caetano’s most recent show, in Rio de Janeiro. In the dressing room, we had our first face-to-face with the singer, who greeted us one by one and guessed our names. Immediate interaction and affection. It was one rather emotional thing which detonated the taboo that the Internet promotes isolation and the repression of firsthand contact.
In Salvador, there was another meeting. After the Concha Acústica concert at the Castro Alves Theater, we went to Caetano’s house and ended the night in a pizzeria. But in Bahia, nothing really ends with pizza. On the following day, the group got together for a caruru (typical Bahian dish) at Vellame’s house, one of the members of the “blog group”. I was playing with Emerson, another component of the gang when Caetano showed up and said: “Continue”. I started playing the samba song Rugas by Nelson Cavaquinho. I had said on the blog that I dreamed of hearing this song in Caetano’s voice. A comment that, at the time, got him to respond with: “Salem, you read my thoughts. The song I most sing at home is Nelson’s song Rugas. So, together, we sang Rugas, which has a genius line “a happy person knows how to suffer”.
During this meeting, some of the people already knew the song that I had composed about our internet-related experiences: Rugas na Pele do Samba. Caetano, didn’t. It was a surprise to be delivered to him a little later, recorded. But, with the atmosphere loaded with emotions, they asked me to sing it. And I sung it, a little clumsily, but I think it went well. When the samba was over, I saw that Caetano was moved. After that, we sang another 15 to 20 songs. We closed out the night trying to find a planet in the sky which only Moreno, Caetano’s son, managed to see.
When zii e zie came to São Paulo, I thought about not going. I feared diluting the enchantment of the Rio and Salvador meetings. But I received an invite and I went on a Friday with my wife, Fernanda. It was a dry show, almost a recital. There was silence during the songs and then long applauses. In the dressing room, some friends invited Caetano to go out and he declined saying that he was tired. But a little bit later, already at the door, he surprised me: “What about now? Where are we going?” I asked if he wanted to come to my house. “I prefer that we meet in the hotel.” That way, we could talk closer to where he would be able to get some rest later. We went, we ate and spoke of music and children without even looking at the clock. At four in the morning, Caetano surprised me again saying that he wanted to learn my song. I got up quickly and took out the guitar from the case. “How nice! Play it”, he asked. I sang. An initial attentive audition. “Write the lyrics on paper,” he asked again. Afterwards, he sang the song with me on the guitar and, in sequence, he sang it and played alone. Everything in place. Even the errors, which were few, sounded perfect. I strummed the last chord. To my luck, it wasn’t a dream. “Now you both can rest and I’ll work on the song.” In the elevator, I asked Fernanda to pinch me. I imagined the possibility of Caetano singing my song in his show on Saturday, but my low tolerance to frustration made me erase that fantasy. Conceit and expectation are the worst kind of drugs.
I was invited to the Saturday show and met up with the “blog group,” but I didn’t say anything about the night before. I maintained myself with my desire and my antidotes against disappointment. In the middle of the show, the roadie positioned a stand with some lyrics on it. I felt Fernanda’s eyes on me. Suspense. I pretended I didn’t notice and made a face like I was part of the paying public waiting to hear the song O Leãozinho. “Today I want to sing a song that’s very new, by Fernando Salem, to celebrate what happened with us through my blog Obra em Progresso“. Then, Caetano sung Rugas na Pele do Samba and, just after, Rugas, from Nelson, which he dedicated to me.
After the show, a long hug. I couldn’t contain myself: “Would you be interested in recording that with me on my new CD?.” The answer: “Yes, of course!” A few days later, Caetano was in my studio registering Rugas na Pele do Samba at my side. To hear it there and on the stage was for me, a truly immodest celebration*.
* – The last line of the story (a truly immodest celebration – uma verdadeira festa imodesta) is a bit of a play on words, as the author was referring to Caetano’s song Festa Imodesta, which is mentioned earlier in the article.
The following is an article/interview taken from the Brazilian magazine ‘Língua Portuguesa’, which I have translated below. For the interview (in PT), see the link above.
- by Luiz Costa Pereira Junior
“The youth of today are children of their mother. With all due respect. The observation, resulting from one of the most interesting pieces of research on Brazilian youth, indicates that the mother figure has become the highest reference of those born in the 80′s and 90′s. In a country in which 20 million families are run by women, values which are considered maternal (affection as a vector of happiness, the cultivation of friends, doing what one enjoys and taking care of who one likes) have come to substitute those which were formerly “masculine” (earn money, build a career, be better at any cost), that have predominated in the previous generation.
The intention of Novos Consumidores 2, a study conducted by Studio Idéias between July and October of 2008 with 1,623 adolescents throughout the entire country and launched at the end of the year, was to measure the relation that the youth maintain with publicity. But, at the request of Núcleo Jovem from the editor Abril, which solicited the study, it was formed into a study of how the urban youth between the ages of 13 and 24 express themselves.
“We took caution to not speak with opinion-formers, in order to portray the average Brazilian, with a minimum of access to the Internet,” said Brenda Fucuta, the director of the Núcleo Jovem from editor Abril, who was responsible for the research.
A journalist since the 1980′s, Brenda has worked with adolescent readers for over 10 years. She was the director of the magazine Capricho and today comands an array of publications for young people, which make up 7 million monthly copies. Under Brenda’s command, the study compared behaviors that explain in part how young people express themselves. On the Internet or during a regular conversation, they dictate the language that will be absorbed in the work place and during family reunions.
Brenda knows that the entire study suffers the risk of generalizing what may be just a partial tendency. But she believes her research brings generational markers that will be incorporated into society. “The generation of peace and love was a minority, but it impacted an era,” she says. Brenda shows here how, by maternal influence, the youth of today is feminizing their vision of the world and shaking up their idea of language.”
“I wrote this one eight years ago; I was impressed by those women in Kabul who lived at home like recluses. I’ve done a lot of work on it; we didn’t record it on the first trip to Rio either, I had to go back just to do this one.” It’s an afoxé, an Afro rhythm from Bahia over a cushioned tempo, a singular option for such a serious subject.”
In Portuguese, the Middle East is called Oriente Médio. When thinking of this song, given the context from Faraco himself, I take it to refer to the East, not specifically the Far East.
I was going to bring you Morena do Mar in its original (sung by Dorival Caymmi) but I couldn’t find it online so then I was going to bring you the version by Nara Leão (with English subs), but at the moment I was about to post it, I found an impromptu version by a San Francisco-based singer named Alodiah that was floating around Youtube which, dare I say, is better than Nara’s.
Over at Literatura & Rio de Janeiro, I found apost on the bondesof Santa Teresa in Rio. Within the post, there’s a lot of photos plus a chronicle by Machado de Assis on the inauguration of the bondes on March 15th, 1877. Below, I will translate it…keep in mind, it is tough to translate the 19th century writings of a creative writer.
They inaugurated the street cars [bondes in Portuguese, a word which originated from the English 'bond'] of Santa Teresa, — a system of clogs or a stairway to heaven, — an image of the things of this world. When the streetcar ascends, another descends, there is no time on the way for a pinch of snuff (powdered tobacco), but surely, two gentlemen can greet each other with a tip of the hat.
The worst is if one day, during the constant ascending and descending, descending and ascending, some ascend into heaven while others descend into purgatory, or perhaps to the morgue.
It goes without saying that the diligences saw the inauguration with an extremely melancholic eye. Some donkeys, accustomed to the ascension and descenst of the hill, were regretting this new step towards progress. One of them, a philosopher, humanitarian and ambitious, would murmur:
— They say: les dieux s’en vont [the gods are leaving]. What irony! No; not the gods but us. Les ânes s’en vont [the asses are leaving], my collegues, les ânes s’en vont. And this interesting quadruped would look at the streetcar with a face full of saudade and humiliation. Perhaps it would recall the slow fall of the donkey, expelled in every way by the steam, like the steam would be by the balloon, and the balloon by electricity, and electricity by a new force, which would take at once this grand worldly train all the way to the terminal station.
However in this way it has not…yet.
But they inaugurated the streetcars. Now Santa Teresa will become fashionable. What was worse, not to be too preachy, were the ‘trips of diligence’, and ironic name for all the vehicles of this type. Diligence is a term midway between a turtle and a bull.
One of the advantages of the streetcars of Santa Teresa on the city, is the impossibility of fishing. Fishing is the sore of the other streetcars. Like this, between the neighborhoods Largo do Machado and Glória, fishing is a true annoyance, as each streetcar descends slowly, looking out from one side or the other, to pick up a passenger from a far. Sometimes the passenger heads towards the Praia do Flamengo, while the streetcar, polite and generous, pauses, naps, takes a sniff, says a few words, collects the passenger and continues its fate until the next corner where it repeats the same lengalenga (spiel).
Nothing like this happens in Santa Teresa: where the streetcar is a real leva-e-traz (gossiper), they aren’t dissuaded to play along the way, like a loafing student.
And if after what is said and done, there isn’t any generous soul that will say that I have a house to rent in Santa Teresa-word of honor! the world is upside down.
Poem of purification Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Translation: Adam
After so many battles
the good angel killed the bad angel
and threw its body into the river.
The waters became tinted
from a blood that wouldn’t discolor
and the fish all died.
But a light that no one knew
how to say from where it came
appeared to clear up the world,
and the other angel pondered the wound
of the fighter angel.
With a little sparkle in the eyes (Com Um Brilhozinho nos Olhos)
by Sergio Godinho
We changed clothes, we changed bodies
we exchanged kisses, so good, it’s so good
and with a little sparkle in the eyes
we played the guitar
at least when judging by the sound
As you can probably tell, he is a Portuguese singer (considered top of the class). Here’s another of his hits.
Do you want flowers, Do you want songs? by Castro Alves
Translated by me
DO YOU WANT FLOWERS? Do you want songs?
How one must give them to you if mourning
I only have them in my chest?
Do you want lights and harmonies?
In vain…just agonies
My lute wailed…
Damsel! Outside of madness
To ask the sweet typhoon,
To the dead happy song,
To search for the flower of the kiosks
Among the cypruses, the forests
Which overshadow the funereal floor.
However listen to my advice… Ask for a mirror from Venice…
Gaze at your face…and you will see
One of the most beautiful paintings
Which — men would not know how to make,
Which — two alike God did not do.
In your beautiful mouth
You will see a pretty rose
Almost closed while smiling
And, like shining drops,
The pearls of your teeth
In the breast of the sparkling flower.
The Oriental perfume
— When you pray innocently —
One cradles in your lips.
And in your breast, one trembles,
You have the Poetry, one moans,
You have the harmony of the Heavens.
Do you want to see Paradise?
Reveal your lips…A laugh
Come show us Eden…
Sing!… And the sacred hymns
You will see in Heaven
Falling stars listen to you.
You have the night by the strings
Where the breeze in arguing themes
Howls… dies of slowness.
They are more than stars — shining
Your fascinating eyes,
— Beautiful verses of love…
And yet you ask of me a song?!…
Break the lyre the saintly Bardo
Upon seeing your smile…
Rip the canvass Rafael…
Fídias snaps the chisel…
God trembles of love in Heaven.
Subversive by Ferreira Gullar
Translation by William Jay Smith
Poetry
when she comes
respects nothing.
Neither father nor mother.
When she struggles
up from one of her abysses
she ignores Society and the State
disdains Water Regulations
hee-haws
like a young
whore
in front of the Palace of Dawn*
And only later
does she reconsider: kisses
the eyes of those who earn little
gathers into her arms
those who thirst for happiness
and justice
