By the time this goes online, I’ll be enjoying a long weekend in London with my family. And while this will likely come across as rather predictable, I just can’t help help myself: I’m posting ‘London, London’, by Caetano Veloso. It is a song from his 1971 album recorded in England, where he lived in exile for about three years after having spent several months in prison as an ‘enemy’ of the military dictatorship in power at the time. Until moving to England in 1969, Caetano’s knowledge of English was virtually non-existent, and yet in this period he regularly composed and recorded songs in English, including ‘London, London’.
The whole album, which is one of my favorites by him, revolves around what it feels like to be in exile: the thankfulness for being received in a foreign country, but also the deep, deep nostalgia (saudade!), the longing for his home. My favorite song of the album is actually 'If you hold a stone' (which soothed many moments of deep nostalgia in yours truly as well), and ‘London, London’ became a bit overplayed when it was recorded by a very successful (but truly horrible) pop band in the 1980s. And yet, it is a beautiful, delicate song. This particular video I'm posting (with tacky pictures of London in the backgroud) also features the lyrics in English, so you can see for yourself that Caetano was already a rather accomplished lyrics writer in English after only 2 years or so of familiarity with the language.
Recent Comments