I’ve mentioned a couple of times before that Clube da Esquina is possibly my very favorite Brazilian album of all times. It is one of those rare albums which is a truly coherent whole, while also having an amazing number of individually spectacular songs, like ‘Cravo e canela’, ‘Me deixa em paz’ and so many others. One of them is the now classic ‘Trem azul’. Besides the original version in Clube da Esquina, it has been recorded by a number of musicians of the magnitude of Elis Regina (who is considered by many as the greatest female Brazilian singer of all times) and Tom Jobim. Each version is very different from the others, and I really cannot make up my mind as to which one I like best.
Fortunately, there is no need to make up my mind, and I can post as many versions as I want here at BMoF! So here are the ones I like best: the original one, sung by Lo Borges; Elis Regina’s version, here in a recording for a TV show in 1981, incidentally one of her very last performances caught on video before her premature death (check here for her studio version); and Tom Jobim’s version, curiously also recorded in his last album, Antonio Brasileiro (1994). Tom Jobim’s version is (mostly) in English, so for once you don’t have to be left to wonder what the lyrics are all about (the Enlighs translation follows the original text fairly closely).
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