(Last week I heard from two (unrelated) good friends, who had both been keen on becoming parents for many years, that they are expecting babies. So inspired by the good news, here’s a column on Brazilian music for children!)
I’ve mentioned before that I haven’t kept up with the latest developments in Brazilian music as much as I would like to since I don’t live in Brazil anymore, but there is one area of Brazilian music I have been kept abreast of: children’s music! Naturally, since I’ve become a mother myself almost seven years ago, Brazilian children’s music has been a constant presence in my life, and here again I can be thankful for being Brazilian; unlike in most other places (certainly the Netherlands…), there is extremely high-quality music made for children in Brazil (along with a lot of crappy stuff, to be sure), often by some of our most talented musicians who make music ‘for grown-ups’ as their main occupation. So I can gladly report that the repertoire of music for children in my household is particularly pleasant even for the grown-ups around.
There is a long tradition of talented musicians making music for children in Brazil; Vinícius de Moraes (who wrote the lyrics for ‘Garota de Ipanema’) and Toquinho recorded the classic Arca de Noé (Noah’s Arch) when I was a kid, Chico Buarque and others were involved in the Saltimbancos record at roughly the same time etc. This tradition continues; for example, I had a post a few months ago on Adriana Calcanhotto, who besides her music for adults has recorded some very popular (and very good!) albums for children in the 2000s. Indeed, there are quite a few prominent musicians who alternate between making music for grown-ups and music for children.
Some of the people making the best music for children in Brazil are the duo Palavra Cantada, who currently really specialize in music for children, but who were active members of the vanguard scene in São Paulo some 20 years ago. They’ve recorded a large number of records, and I can say from personal experience that many of them are real gems. (For a long time, the lullabies that my children would sleep to were for a large part Palavra Cantada songs.) I’ll post here one of their best known songs, ‘Pindorama’ (recorded in 1998), which offers an alternative and humorous account of the discovery of Brazil by the Portuguese, from the point of view of the Indians who were already there. It is sung by a Brazilian boy and a Portuguese boy, and if you pay attention, the differences in the accents will become apparent immediately.
A more recent band making great music for children is Pequeno Cidadão (album of the same name recorded in 2009), composed of some well-known, highly regarded musicians. One of them is Arnaldo Antunes, who was a member of the rock band Titãs (very popular in the 1980s) and who went on to become one of the most respected ‘poets’ in recent Brazilian music (he has also collaborated with Marisa Monte and Carlinhos Brown on the Tribalistas project). Others are Edgar Scandurra (leading guitar in the punk-rock band Ira!, also of the 1980s), Taciana Barros (also active in the rock-pop scene of the 1980s) and Antonio Pinto (known in particular as the composer of movies' soundtracks, such as City of God). So, all these people now have children of different ages, and got together to record an album where these children would also actively participate. The result is music for children that adults in fact like to listen to (I must admit having played a few of their songs when my daughters were not around…). There are two songs of this record which I really, really like, so I’m posting them both here (I couldn’t make up my mind between them). One tells the story of the sun who fell in love with the moon but was not reciprocated (for funny reasons, such as the sun's reluctance to shower!), and the other is a protest chant against the pacifier (“I want to sing/without a rubber lid/bothering me!”)
As I said, this is all music that even adults with no particular connection with the world of children are likely to enjoy, so do give it a go even if the last thing you saw yourself doing on this Friday morning is listening to children’s music!
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