This is the second in a series of posts on Tropicália and the Brazilian counterculture under the dictatorship, based on my study with Dr. Talia Guzman-Gonzalez at the University of Maryland, who has kindly helped me to edit my Portuguese writing.
Essa série, que tem sido tão divertida pra eu escrever, continua hoje com uma das músicas mais conhecidas e bonitas do cânone tropicalista. A música Baby apareceu no famoso álbum tropicalista Tropicália, ou Panis et Circensis, lançado em 1968. É uma das minhas preferidas, devido à voz deslumbrante de Gal e ao arranjamento exuberante de Rogério Duprat, arranjador que fez a orquestração para muitos dos álbuns tropicalistas.
Escrita por Caetano Veloso e cantada por Gal Costa, Baby é uma meditação sonhadora sobre a cultura pop e a cultura de consumo no fim dos anos 60.
Ela começa com uma lista dos bens dos que você “precisa” — aquelas coisas sem as quais sua vida não está completa, se você quiser participar na cultura de massa da sociedade moderna:
Você precisa saber da piscina Da margarina, da Carolina, da gasolina Você precisa saber de mim Baby, baby, eu sei que é assim Baby, baby, eu sei que é assim
Um dos meus alvos nessa série de postes é produzir traduções das letras de qualidade superior às quais já estão disponíveis no web. Mas não tenho dúvidas ao respeito a como traduzir Você precisa saber aqui. Sempre imagino essa frase como se fosse falada por um locutor de rádio numa propaganda, exaltando as virtudes dos produtos de modernidade.
You need to know all about swimming pools
About margarine, Carolina [a popular Chico Buarque song], gasoline
You need to get to know me
Baby, baby, I know how it is
Ela continua a mesma tema na próxima estrophe:
Você precisa tomar um sorvete Na lanchonete, andar com a gente, me ver de perto Ouvir aquela canção do Roberto Baby, baby, há quanto tempo Baby, baby, há quanto tempo
Você precisa aprender inglês Precisa aprender o que eu sei E o que eu não sei mais E o que eu não sei mais
You need to get some ice cream
At the lanchonete; walk with us, see me up close
Hear that Roberto [Carlos] song
Baby, baby, it’s been so long
You need to learn English
Need to learn what I know
And what I no longer know
And what I no longer know
Repare que isso não é apenas uma lista dos objetos materiais que se deve comprar para participar na cultura do consumidor — há também as coisas imateriais que são obrigatórias para a participação na nova cultura da massa. É necessário escutar os músicos de moda (Chico Buarque e Roberto Carlos), falar inglês (símbolo daquela cultura e marca da classe média), e possuir um carro. A cultura certa deve ser consumida tanto como os bens materiais certos.
Entre os objetos imateriais é o amor. Baby é cheia de declarações de amor — mas são sinceras, ou são declarações irônicas sobre a comodificação do amor como mais um “bem” que se pode comprar e vender? Será que Caetano estava respondendo numa forma irônica aos Beatles, que declararam só no ano anterior que a única coisa do que você precisa é o amor?
Não sei comigo vai tudo azul Contigo vai tudo em paz Vivemos na melhor cidade Da América do Sul, da América do Sul Você precisa, você precisa, você precisa Não sei, leia na minha camisa
I dunno, everything’s cool with me
Everything’s peaceful with you
We live in the greatest city
In South America, in South America
You need, you need, you need
I dunno, just read it on my t-shirt
A frase Você precisa é repetida como mantra da época de comercialismo. A implicação é que tudo estará bom, se pelo menos você anda adquirindo bens materiais. A música é inundada pelas melódias doces das cordas, que justamente com o ritmo descontraido em 6/8, criam uma atmosfera sonhadora, e provocam o ouvinte a um delírio no qual ela consegue afogar as preocupações, fingindo que aqui no Rio, cidade maravilhosa, está tudo beleza. Consumo como droga. Ou seja, uma forma de panis et circenses que apaguiza e distrai as massas, eles que estão occupados em nascer, morrer — e consumir. Mas tudo isso é só uma fantasia, pois sabemos que nas ruas do Rio de verdade não está tudo beleza.
Baby, baby, I love you Baby, baby, I love you
No fim da música, Gal e Caetano se unem num dueto em qual repetem essas quatro palavras em inglês — a língua importada da cultura de massa, a língua do rock n’ roll, a língua da propaganda. São as palavras mais simples, mais reconhecíveis, mais típicas da música anglófona. Quatro palavras, reduzidas a um simples palavrão de órdem numa camiseta.
Então, falado tudo isso, como interpretamos a atitude de “Baby” com respeito à cultura de consumo e a cultura de massa no Brasil naquela época? É que a peça inteira é simplesmente uma paródia sarcástica do consumerismo? Ou tem aspectos sinceros também?
Assim como tantas músicas tropicalistas, existe uma dialética aqui. Baby é no mesmo tempo uma rejeição e um abraço dessas culturas. A cultura pop podia ficar sim uma fuga (agradável mas ilusória) da realidade de vida sob a ditadura, mas também é claro que ela é uma forma genuína de expressão artística e política, uma das poucas disponíveis aos brasileiros no fim dos anos 60.
Acho que a música alcança seu poder pela mistura inesperada de sinceridade (na letra) e alienação (na própria música). Na superfície, a letra da Baby fala de um desejo sincero de fugir por meio de consumo. Não tem nada de ironia naquele dueto lindo entre Gal e Caetano no fim. Mas escutando atentamente, percebemos um aspecto sinisto nessa inocência, algum senso de alienação da sociedade moderna. Talvez a orquestração, com todas aquelas cordas sentimentais, é pouco doce e sedutora demais.
Alias, é possível que o significado da música já tenha mudado ao longo dos anos. Se originalmente a música tratou do consumerismo de uma forma crítica, hoje em dia, sempre que Gal canta Baby ao vivo, canta com um certo senso de nostalgia. A galera canta com ela, conhecendo bem as palavras. As audiências cariocas se alegram quando ela canta do melhor cidade da America do Sul (veja abaixo). Talvez o senso de alienação já ficou perdido — mas Baby continua como standard querido.
This is the first in a series of posts on Tropicália music and the Brazilian counterculture under the dictatorship, based on my study with Dr. Talia Guzman-Gonzalez at the University of Maryland. Some posts are in English and others are in Portuguese. I have provided my own English translations for all the lyrics quoted, including a few songs that I have not found in translation elsewhere.
Divino Maravilhoso – Gal Costa & Caetano Veloso
“I sang with all the fury and strength that I had in me. Half of the audience stood up to boo. The other half applauded ferociously.”
1968 was an intense year of protest and repression in Brazil. Four years after the military took power in a devastating coup, signs of organized resistance were beginning to stir on the Left. Following the example of French students in Paris, leftist students in Brazil led the first large street protests in São Paulo and Rio. But in the fall, the dictatorship cracked down on the protestors with a brutal new law called AI-5. It repealed habeas corpus, dissolved the legislative and judicial branches of government, and made mass protest illegal. AI-5 effectively ended organized public resistance to the dictatorship. In response, the left wing moved underground and fractured into dozens of groups, some advocating armed revolution.
In the midst of all this, music was one of the few forms of expression that opponents of the regime had left — the censors hadn’t yet begun to silence and exile musicians. Bossa nova, born in the late 1950s when Brazil was the cosmopolitan country of the future, was now seen as passé by many young people; the sentimental lyrics were too apolitical and introspective for the times. But new genres of music were stirring: Jovem Guarda artists assimilated the British and American rock n’ roll sound, iê-iê-iê musicians exploited the youth culture of the Beatles, and música popular brasileira (MPB) artists argued for a more nationalistic expression of popular music. Both rock and pop were coming into their own in a uniquely Brazilian way.
The young Bahians: Caetano Veloso, Maria Bettânia, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil
Enter a group of young Bahían musicians — among them, Gal Costa the bossa nova singer. Like many of her contemporaries, Gal’s fascination with music began with João Gilberto and bossa nova. She and Caetano Veloso released an album of bossa nova tunes in 1966. But in 1968, she found herself as part of the emerging force of tropicália. Love and revolution were in the air, and she wanted to do something a bit…different.
That brings us to this exquisite, seminal moment of Brazilian television: Gal Costa’s 1968 appearance on Festival de Record. Televised festivals like this one were hugely popular as a way for Brazilians to tune into popular music, and they ultimately became the stage for the young Bahians to articulate a new vision of Brazilian music.
In the video, the audience immediately knows something is up when Gal, who had previously been known for her tasteful bossa nova renditions, comes out on stage rocking an afro and a huge mirrored necklace dangling from her neck. At first, she appears a bit timid and startled by the audience’s intense reaction. She lights into Divino Maravilhoso (Divine Marvelous), a rock song penned by Caetano Veloso and one of the most overtly political anthems of late sixties tropicália. During the first verse she stands fairly reservedly, and sings:
Atenção ao dobrar uma esquina Uma alegria, atenção menina Você vem, quantos anos você tem? Atenção, precisa ter olhos firmes Pra este sol, para esta escuridão
Watch out,
Whenever you round a corner,
Or a happiness – Watch out young lady!
“Come here! How old are you?”
Watch out,
You need to have steady eyes
For this sun, for this darkness
But this is not Chega de Saudade. This is a new Gal Costa.
The opening lines evoke the oppressive “papers please” climate of intimidation that has seized Brazil since the coup. Next Gal sings of the dual spirit of the times — one of danger, but also of countercultural experimentation:
Atenção Tudo é perigoso Tudo é divino maravilhoso Atenção para o refrão
Watch out,
Everything is dangerous
Everything is divine marvelous
Watch out for the chorus! [or, Pay attention to the chorus!]
Perhaps only the English word “groovy” captures the psychedelic, everything’s-cool-man spirit conveyed by the phrase divino maravilhoso. With most forms of political resistance outlawed, only cultural resistance remained, in the form of experimentation with drugs, challenging gender and sexual norms, and of course, pop music. Music that might contain political or social messages if you’re reading between the lines, if you’re paying atenção to the chorus.
That last line — Atenção pra o refrão! — is so very meta. Look out, here comes the chorus. Gal had just recently seen some footage of Janis Joplin and she decided to incorporate elements of Janis’ style into this performance: Every time she gets to that line she shouts it defiantly and emits a Joplin-esque scream before launching into the chorus:
É preciso estar atento e forte Não temos tempo de temer a morte
You gotta be alert and strong
We don’t have time to fear death
The nucleus of the song is the repeated slogan Atenção!, which could be read as both a warning to beware of danger (“Watch out!”) and as a piece of advice on how to survive in the military era (“Pay attention!” or “Listen up!”). Pay attention, because music is not just for entertainment: music has social and political signification. And in the era of AI-5, music has to be a bit more subtle about its subtext if it’s going to pass by the censors. Atenção is therefore both a call to action and a declaration of the importance of artists in the new political environment.
By the second verse, Gal starts to gain more confidence:
Atenção para a estrofe e pro refrão Pro palavrão, para a palavra de ordem Atenção para o samba-exaltação
Watch out for the verse and the chorus
for the curse words, for the slogans
Watch out for the samba-exaltação
Tropicalist artists shared a suspicion not just of the military dictatorship, but of the leftists and communists as well. These groups had their own rigid ideologies, dictates and artistic imperatives that the young Bahians resisted. (Caetano returns to this theme in Estrangeiro: pay attention to the old man and the young girl, speaking as one voice, and who they might symbolize). In this verse, Gal and Caetano urge the listener to beware of sloganeering from the left, both the curse words (palavrão) and the political slogans (a palavra de ordem).
Caetano’s lyrics refer here to the samba-exaltação, a patriotic type of samba that was used as a tool of nationalist propaganda by the regime of Getúlio Vargas in the 1930-40s. The song that defined this genre was Ary Barroso’s well-known carnaval samba Aquarela do Brasil. Although it is now considered a classic of samba and MPB, Aquarela might have been forgotten were it not for the 1942 Disney cartoon Saludos Amigos which brought it to worldwide attention. The appeal of this song stretches across genres and national boundaries; over the years it’s been transformed into a jazz standard, a disco hit, a protest song, an MPB standard, a Kate Bush cover from Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil, a Ney Matogrosso cover, an R&B hit, and most recently re-popularized in the US as a sort of global lounge music by Pink Martini. (There’s a whole paper waiting to be written, tracing the strange evolution of Aquarela in Brazil and the US. And there’s another paper to be had in the work of Norman Gimbel and Bob Russell, who created the English lyrics to songs like Aquarela and Girl from Ipanema, often changing their meanings and even the melodic line substantially to suite the tastes of American audiences).
I see these sambas-exaltações as a sort of ufanismo, a term used to describe the glowing letters of the early Portuguese explorers who described the abundance of Brazil in hyperbolic terms; it later came to refer also to the patriotic slogans of the dictatorship era (“Brazil – Love It or Leave It”, “Forward Brasil!”) which were meant to inspire nationalist sentiment and quell dissent. So by warning people to beware of the samba-exaltação, Gal is saying to beware of government propaganda.
Atenção para as janelas no alto Atenção ao pisar o asfalto, o mangue Atenção para o sangue sobre o chão
Watch out for the high-up windows
Watch out when you step on the asphalt, the swamp
Watch out for the blood on the ground
More images of a police state: the “high-up windows” from which the military police would keep an eye on protests in the streets of São Paulo; the blood of protestors and dissidents on the ground. The lyrical boldness here is almost brazen. This is one of the most overt songs of political resistance in the Tropicália cannon. After AI-5, there would be no more songs like this for many years. Messages of protest were still there, but they became more subtle and allegorical.
Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and other artists march in support of the student movement. The sign says “Artists, intellectuals and clergy with the students”.
What I love about Gal in this video is the way her performance becomes increasingly less restrained as she sucks up the energy from the audience — both the adulation and the boos (you can’t hear the booing, but according to her there was plenty of it). Her pre-chorus shouts become louder and more violent, her intonation wavers, her movements become more aggressive. By the end she seems physically exhausted, exuberant — and covered in streamers.
But you can also detect, at least in the beginning, a bit of nervousness. You can tell that this performance style is new for her, and that she’s not quite sure how it will go over in front of an audience on national television.
I’ll leave you with this snippet of a 2005 interview, in which Gal explained the genesis of this life-changing performance:
“At that time I was completely immersed in the tropicalist environment. We spoke of nothing but the new movements that were emerging in the world. Gil listened to Hendrix all day long. I couldn’t get Janis Joplin out of my head. That sound, that raspy voice, took me in and created in me the need to do something different from what I believed, different from everything I had done up till then and from how I understood music at the time… I needed to do something to express myself, to put out there what I was feeling with force, with attitude — and, to be honest, to call attention to myself…
I came across Divino Maravilhoso, a song that really grabbed me. Caetano invited me to sing it at the Festival do Record, and Gil proposed to do the arrangement. Gil was astute enough to ask me how I wanted to sing it. I explained that I wanted to sing in a new way, explosive, out of this world. I wanted to show that there was another woman inside me. Another Gal besides the one who would sit on a stool and quietly sing bossa nova. I wanted to sing explosively! Really put it out there. So Gil went and made the arrangement for Divino Maravilhoso.
When Caetano saw me step onto the stage covered in baubles, with mirrors dangling from my neck, and that afro haircut, he nearly died of shock. He hadn’t known about any of this. He hadn’t heard Gil’s arrangement — nothing. I sang with all the fury and strength that I had in me. Half of the audience stood up to boo. The other half applauded ferociously. A man in front of me shouted insults. It was then that I felt a still greater strength that flung me against him. I sang directly to him: É preciso estar atento e forte, não temos tempo de temer a morte! I sang with such force and such violence that the poor guy shut up and shrank away, and disappeared inside himself. It was the first time that I felt what it was like to dominate an audience. A furious audience! At that time of political polarization, music was the only form of expression. It awoke passions, wars. I walked away from Divino Maravilhoso strengthened, grown up. I think that on that night I took the stage as a teenager, and left as a woman. Suffering, bruised — but victorious.”
You can hear the influence of Divino Maravilhoso in the wonderfully off-the-wall Meu Nome é Gal, from her 1969 album Gal, in which she collaborated with early Brazilian rockers Erasmo Carlos and Roberto Carlos. Gal screams and shouts atop searing electric guitars and a psychadelic orchestral arrangement – a defiant statement of the new direction that Brazilian pop music would take in the 1970s.
Language Notes
The lyrics to Divino Maravilhoso are pretty simple, so there’s not too much to say. I did learn the expression dobrar uma esquina = to go round a corner. Dobrar means to fold, so it makes sense. The ao in ao dobrar uma esquina is a way of saying “upon”, as in “Upon rounding a corner…”. You always stick it right before a verb in infinitive form:
Ao chegar no portão, ligue para o porteiro. (Upon arriving at the gate, call the doorman)
Two good words to know when talking about lyrics (a letra) are a estrophe (verse) and o refrão (chorus).
And after listening to Divino Maravilhoso a few times, you’ll never forget how to say “Watch out for” something – it’s Atenção para…
Atenção pro carro! (Watch out for the car!)
If you’re interested in learning more about the Tropicáliamovement, I recommend two books. Brutality Garden is a very readable survey of the movement that will help you understand its roots and analyze individual songs. Caetano Veloso’s autobiography Tropical Truth (Verdade Tropical in Portuguese) is a wide-ranging intellectual tour-de-force of a book that will make anyone a smarter Brazilianist. Some reviewers have said it is hard to understand for an American audience, but if you read Brutality Garden first you will have the background to understand the artistic movements that Caetano writes about from a more personal and revealing angle.
Need some new material for listening practice? Português com Humor is a delightful new postcast+blog that advanced students might enjoy, though it isn’t designed specifically for PLE (português como língua estrangeira) learners. It’s an interesting look into the sort of language issues that confuse native speakers — accent marks, onde vs aonde, eu vs mim. The podcast discussion is native-level, but I still found the two speakers pretty easy to understand and fun to listen to.
Caetano, who always has a way with words, reminds us why it’s a good idea to practice the voiceless Brazilian R sounds:
“The fricative consonant allows the R’s, unlike the P’s, for instance, to be prolonged indefinitely. But whether in its properly fricative version, with the friction occurring between the tongue and the teeth (as in Italian), or in its guttural version, with either a strong aspiration (as in French) or one not so strong (as in Brazilian Portuguese north of Rio, unlike that of south of São Paulo, where the Brazilian R resembles the Italian), this prolongation is the prolongation of a sound into which the voice does not enter.
When the voice does intervene among the distinctive duration of the R, the effect is ridiculous to us Brazilians. There is a joke in which the narrator imitates a choir in one of those Paulista inland towns where the voiced R is dominant: when the conductor signals the end of the last bar of a song, ending in the word “amor,” the narrator dwells on the note, holding on to the horrible rolling sound of the liquid and vibrant R, rather than the vowel O. Frank Sinatra unwittingly recreates this comical effect in a song ending with the word “amore” or “before”.
But this is the very nature of the English language. We are inclined to find the Scottish R’s somewhat inadequate, while we admire the refined British who pronounce the intervocalic or nearly aspirated final R’s so dryly — as opposed to the coarser Americans who relish chewing on long, cavernous, supersalivated R’s, whatever the letter’s position in the word.”
– from Caetano’s marvelous autobiography Tropical Truth (which I recommend for anyone interested in Tropicália and the Brazilian counterculture)
It’s a popular thing for us Americans to do nowadays: live abroad for a year, or two, or five. Where do you want to go exactly? I dunno…someplace exotic… South Korea, maybe, or Cambodia, or Peru, or Brazil. Now the big question: how are we going to get by? Oh you know… we could always teach English.
Well, why not? There’s a great demand for English education in pretty much everywhere in the world, and as native speakers we’ve got all the qualification we need.
Or do we?
A reader left a comment that got me thinking about all those programs that hire American students with no teaching experience and no knowledge of the local language.
“I visit Hacking Portuguese regularly, and find it more helpful than polling online Brazilian friends because the lessons come from the POV of a native English speaker. It’s nearly impossible to communicate the basis for some of the questions generated when learning Portuguese to a native because there’s no common context. Which prepositions to use with which verb is an excellent example of this. In fact I asked a friend from Rio this morning for some general guidelines on the use of por and para, and he said it was too complicated to explain, and that reading Portuguese books and articles would provide the best method for understanding the uses. It’s reasonable advice, but I would like to become fluent sometime this decade!”
And here is how I responded:
Thank you Brett! I completely agree that in some ways, it is easier to learn Portuguese from a native English speaker who can explain things in reference to our shared native language. As good as my tutors and professores have been, sometimes they don’t know how to explain things the way that my brain wants, or they don’t understand the nuances of the problem I am grappling with. That’s why I endorse programs like Tá Falado, which combine the expertise of native Portuguese speakers and a native English teacher who can anticipate the trouble spots.
I also think it’s naive to assume that just because you speak a language, you’re capable of teaching it to someone who doesn’t. There are so many things you need to know in order to teach. The grammar of the language you’re teaching (we often have grammatical blinders on when it comes to our native language. Having faint recollections of grammar class in school does not help you understand the complexities of how your language really works). The grammar of your students’ native language. An understanding of teaching pedagogy and second-language acquisition.
You have to be reasonably fluent in the native language of your students. And you have to have studied the grammar of the language you are teaching inside and out. Only then can you teach the language in a way that will make sense to your students.
Learning a language is a process of forming a model of your target language. At first it starts out as a very rough model that is a mish-mash of elements of your native language(s) and elements of your target language, but you gradually refine it until it looks more and more like the target language. The process of refining it happens by making mistakes. You make a statement in your target language. Then maybe your teacher corrects part of what you have said. And based on that correction, you see that part of your model is incorrect, so you adjust your model accordingly.
Linguists call this mental model an interlanguage. It’s your best approximation of how the target language operates, and it allows you to make predictions about what is right or wrong in the language, even about things that you haven’t explicitly been taught.
Now, to be an effective teacher, you need to have a good idea of what your students’ interlanguage looks like. And you need to know what your students starting assumptions are. How do they model the language in their heads? Where are they likely to make mistakes? Which things will be challenging for them to understand? Because the interlanguage is based in part of the native language of the student, you absolutely must have a good command of that language.
Students are continually making comparisons between the target language and their native language. In English, you do this, but in Spanish, you do this. The knowledge is stored as a mapping from one language to the other. The job of a good teacher is to help students internalize those comparisons until they no longer need the native point of reference. But you must understand what that point of reference is!
My point is two-fold. If you are considering teaching English abroad, you will be a much better teacher (and probably earn more money) if you have a) spent a good amount of time grappling with the complexities of your students’ native language b) gotten some training on how to teach English. The Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification is offered by many companies and requires only a few months to complete.
But my other point, perhaps more controversial, is that we should think about how fluent-but-non-native speakers can be effective teachers as well. Learning from someone who has already spent years studying your target language can be extremely valuable. Ideally, you would want a team consisting of a native speaker and a fluent (but non-native) speaker. I think this is why programs like Tá Falado are so successful – you get all the benefits of hearing native speakers, but also the wisdom of Orlando Kelm’s experience with Portuguese.
Caetano, who always has a way with words, reminds us why it’s a good idea to practice the voiceless Brazilian 
