Skip to main content

A worldwide New Song movement in the 60's and 70's (the Portuguese example)

Image
By
I was about to answer Gabriel's post with a comment but realised that it would be difficult to include a video there.

Gabriel asked for a Portuguese example. The example that immediately comes to my mind is Zeca Afonso. Again the guitar and the poetic engaged lyrics, as in Gabriel's examples. One of his songs was broadcast as a sign for the army to start the revolution that overthrew the authoritarian government in Portugal in 1974.

The music I am leaving here talks about the people from a neighbourhood known as "The indians of Meia Praia". This was a slum of fisherman in the south of Portugal. After the revolution the people living there gathered and rebuilt the neighbourhood with the help of the architect José Veloso within a program called SAAL, within which the government gave the land, some technical and financial support. The song is full of revolutionary spirit. I do not dare to translate the lyrics, but is has sentences such as: "There were women and children, each of them with their own brick, "This here was like an orchestra", who says the opposite is dum".


   






Os Índios da Meia Praia

Aldeia da Meia-Praia
Ali mesmo ao pé de Lagos
Vou fazer-te uma cantiga
Da melhor que sei e faço

De Monte-Gordo vieram
Alguns por seu próprio pé
Um chegou de bicicleta
Outro foi de marcha a ré

Quando os teus olhos tropeçam
No voo duma gaivota
Em vez de peixe vê peças
De ouro caindo na lota

Quem aqui vier morar
Não traga mesa nem cama
Com sete palmos de terra
Se constrói uma cabana

Tu trabalhas todo o ano
Na lota deixam-te mudo
Chupam-te até ao tutano
Levam-te o couro cabeludo

Quem dera que a gente tenha
De Agostinho a valentia
Para alimentar a sanha
De esganar a burguesia

Adeus disse a Monte-Gordo
(Nada o prende ao mal passado)
Mas nada o prende ao presente
Se só ele é o enganado

Oito mil horas contadas
Laboraram a preceito
Até que veio o primeiro
Documento autenticado

Eram mulheres e crianças
Cada um c'o seu tijolo
"Isto aqui era uma orquestra"
Quem diz o contrário é tolo

E se a má lingua não cessa
Eu daqui vivo não saia
Pois nada apaga a nobreza
Dos índios da Meia-Praia

Foi sempre a tua figura
Tubarão de mil aparas
Deixar tudo à dependura
Quando na presa reparas

Das eleições acabadas
Do resultado previsto
Saiu o que tendes visto
Muitas obras embargadas

Mas não por vontade própria
Porque a luta continua
Pois é dele a sua história
E o povo saiu à rua

Mandadores de alta finança
Fazem tudo andar pra trás
Dizem que o mundo só anda
Tendo à frente um capataz

Eram mulheres e crianças
Cada um c'o seu tijolo
"Isto aqui era uma orquestra"
Quem diz o contrário é tolo

E toca de papelada
No vaivém dos ministérios
Mas hão-de fugir aos berros
Inda a banda vai na estrada

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Beauty and Consolation

By
Van de Schoonheid en de Troost or Of Beauty and Consolation is Dutch TV program hosted by Wim Kayzer and broadcasted in 2000. There are several reasons for me to recomend this tv series. First of all I like the title very much. The title is in itself consoling, says that there is somewhere or somehow the possibility of consolation (that for some reason I feel the need). The second reason is the music of the beginning of each episode. Then, of course, the interviews themselves, since they are long enough and free enough to allow these brilliant people to show a little bit of their work, of their personality, of their idiosyncrasies. And probably the nicest thing of the series is the diversity of the people interviewed, scientists, writers, philosophers, painters, some incredibly shy, some the opposite, some believe in ghosts, most don't, all in all an interesting catalog of the human species. The tv series ends with a show in which they gather many of the guests to discuss the...
2 comments
Read more

RSA Animate - Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us - Daniel Pink

By
RSA Animate is a collection of 10 min cartoon-like animations on a whiteboard that partners with a synthesis of a conference given by renown academics in RSA Events . This series is put forward by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), who aim at a 21st century enlightenment .  I first saw some of the short-film series while being in Cuba. I remember I was astonished by the amount of information they could compress in a 10 min talk. Then, I noticed that there was a great deal of post-processing after the 'natural' 30 min or so talk. Nonetheless, it is still amazing how they can manage to do it so smoothly. The animations deserve special attention. They are not only accompanying the talk but they actually supply complementary information, in terms of irony, cultural references, etc., while marking a step-by-step evolution of the speech in a better way than any slide show could do. Here is an RSA Animate example on "Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us", ...
1 comment
Read more

VSauce - How to count past infinity - Michael Stevens

By
VSauce is a youtube channel created by Michael Stevens, graduated from psychology and English literature and turned educator and Internet personality. In my opinion, nothing in Stevens's academic career, other than his insatiable curiosity and his tremendous discipline, could have ever been used to forecast the success of his enterprise of weekly scripting, directing and hosting high level youtube videos concerning a variety of topics, ranging from human to exact sciences. The quality of the videos had been increasing since the beginning of VSauce back in 2010, not only in its visual appeal but also in the script, didactics, and the selection of subjects. Now VSauce is as mature as any TV show or documentary. Furthermore, the episodes (videos?) are incredibly profound and often self-contained. Here you have a recent example. It is very accurate in its mathematical definitions and the proofs for each statement, while conveying the message to any sufficiently interested audience i...
1 comment
Read more