Last week I posted a song written by Caetano Veloso when in exile, as a small token of support for the people in Egypt fighting for democracy. Overly optimistically, I had hoped to be able to post a more feel-good song this week, following an improvement in the situation in Egypt. Alas, a significant improvement has yet to happen, so instead I will post the song which can be considered as the anthem of opposing the military dictatorship in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s: ‘Apesar de você’ by Chico Buarque.
Chico Buarque is one of the greatest singers and songwriters of the generation which emerged in the 1960s and is still highly influential and productive (others are Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, to mention just a few). Although perhaps having less popular penetration than some of his generation-fellows, Chico Buarque has been a constant presence in the Brazilian music scene of the last decades; he is known in particular for his elaborate lyrics and subtle and sophisticated compositions. He’s not much of a singer, to be frank, but quite an interpreter. He’s had quite some success abroad, in particular in France, and has composed and recorded many, many memorable songs. He is also an accomplished novelist, having written quite a few well-received fiction books.
Chico composed ‘Apesar de você’ in 1970, when he returned to Brazil after a self-imposed exile of one year in Italy. Upon his return, he realized that the political situation was as bad as it had been before, perhaps worse: the torture and disappearance of those who opposed the regime were constant elements -- sounds familiar? Dictatorships tend not to be particularly creative… But of course, he could not externalize his criticism openly, as yet another typical feature of all dictatorships, namely censorship, was in full force. So he wrote ‘Apesar de você’, disguising his criticism as the story of a quarrel between lovers. Reading the lyrics now, it is quite amazing that anybody could have possibly failed to identify the real content of the song, and yet the censors must have been pretty thick: to Chico Buarque’s own surprise, the song was approved for broadcasting! So it was sent to the radio stations and released as a single which sold very well. It was only some time later that, in a newspaper, the suggestion was made that the song was really about the ‘quarrel’ between the people and the military regime. This time, the government got the message, forbade the song from being broadcasted, and destroyed the remaining copies of the single. After this episode, Chico Buarque had constant difficulties with the censors, who censored even his most apolitical songs. 'Apesar de você’ was only ‘de-censored’ and released again in a 1978 album.
‘Apesar de você’ means ‘In spite of you’: the song is about how, in spite of all ‘your’ wrongdoings (you who? When interrogated by the police and asked who the ‘you’ of the song was, Chico’s reply was: “It is a very bossy, authoritarian woman.”), life will go on, and tomorrow will be another, better day. The time will come when ‘you’ will have to pay back all the suffering and pain you have caused. It is thus a song about pain and oppression, but also about the hope that, one day, things *will* change. Here is my attempt at translating bits and pieces of the lyrics (apologies for literally ravaging Chico Buarque’s beautiful text):
Você vai pagar, e é dobrado,
Cada lágrima rolada
Nesse meu penar
(You will pay double/ Every shedded tear/ In this suffering of mine)
………………………………….
Eu pergunto a você onde vai se esconder
Da enorme euforia?
Como vai proibir
Quando o galo insistir em cantar?
(I ask you, where will you hide/ From the huge euphoria?/ How will you forbid/ When the rooster insists on singing?)
Now, I can only say that it is about time that ‘tomorrow’ comes for Egypt.
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