Gerard Béhague - Brazilian Musical Values of The 1960s and 1970s - Popular Urban Music From Bossa Nova [PDF]

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Brazilian Musical Values of the 1960s and 1970s: Popular Urban Music from Bossa Nova to Tropicalia Gerard B6hague Brazilian rhythms have enjoyed wide popularity in this country for m a n y years, but Americans who delight in the samba and other sounds are generally unfamiliar with the development and special characteristics o f this national music. I n his paper, Gerard BLhague studies the main trends of Brazilian popular music associated with the bossa nova. I n particular, he examines the music’s socio-cultural meaning for producers and consumers, its relationship to or influence from foreign models, and the various cultural values that it expresses. He traces the original bossa nova phenomenon o f the late 1950s, emphasizing that its cultivators, who were from uppermiddle-class families, developed a somewhat elitist urban popular musical trend. Contrary to m a n y critics’ opinions, bossa nova did not result from jazz or imitations o f other imported styles. Thematically, early bossa nova differed little f r o m the samba, a trulypopular music. However, bossa nova’s poFtic substance and treatment did reveal significant innovations. Behague asserts that after 1964, a new social awareness developed among bossa nova musicians. He discusses the musical compositions o f the musician-poet Chico Buarque who, more than earlier bossa nova musicans, established a clear link with the traditional samba of the 1930s and 1940s, thus giving bossa nova a n euen more popular character. The author also reviews the work o f the group o f musician-poet-performersof the mid-1960s known as the Tropicdia. Their music adhered to the basic concepts of modernismo, a Brazilian literary movement o f the 1920s. Gerard Bghague is Professor o f Musicology/Ethnomusicologyat the University o f Texas at Austin. He is current President o f the Society for Ethnomusicology and Editor of the Latin American Music Review/Revista de Mdsica Latinoamericana. He has written extensively o n music in Latin America. Ever since the advent of Bossa Nova in the late 1950s, Brazilian urban popular music (MPB, i.e. “misica popular brasileira,” the generic designation in Brazil) has gone through various phases of creativity that epitomize the wide range of esthetic attitudes and values prevailing in the country since then. The study of this music, both in Brazil and abroad, has generally suffered from casual treatment, either in rather impressionistic sociological, philosophical and ideological terms, or in strictly journalistic,

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literary and uncritical praises of a given trend or group of artists. Commercial popular music has been considered primarily in relation to its marketing potential and to vaguely defined fashion cycles whose extramusical nature is often indicated as the most ominous influence on the resulting music product. Because of its commercial nature, urban popular music has been avoided altogether by Brazilian folklorists and musicologists. Yet, from a theoretical viewpoint, it would seem hardly necessary to point out that this music presents the same research problems-historical, socio-symbolic, functional-as other repertories, whether traditional or art music. Urban ethnomusicology h a s developed only within the last fifteen to twenty years and h a s proven one of the most fruitful areas of the social sciences, particularly in connection with the study of cultural dynamics, modernization, and, in some culture areas, Westernization (cf. Nett1 1978: 7-14). Since the beginning of the twentieth century, most Latin American countries have seen a massive development of urban cultures, a s the result of urban growth. As a n essential, expressive device, urban popular music h a s logically reflected the cultural, sometimes ethnic, always socioeconomic diversity of the cities. In the case of Brazil, such growth and diversity are phenomenal. With this development came mass culture and all the debates that it engendered. That Brazilian folklorists and musicologists have chosen to ignore the popular musical expressions emanating from urban culture in general and from mass culture in particular is hardly understandable and certainly unjustifiable. The main attempts a t justification have cited the allegedly unwarranted intrusion of foreign musical models or genres into the local repertory, and the often-repeated argument of the alleged deterioration of both art-music and folk-music standards resulting from the commercial exploitation of urban music markets and its negative influences on the creativity of popular musicians. Any student of the diffusion of cultural elements, however, must recognize with Franz Boas that in the transfer of elements from one society to another these elements may or may not retain their original meanings. In the case of certain trends of Brazilian popular music it can be said that elements borrowed from the predominantly Western rock era or from jazz indeed lost most of their original meanings. As Graham Vulliamy perceptively points out, popular culture tends to be considered as a “homogeneous category” and popular music is “always treated unquestionably a s a holistic category” (Vulliamy 1980:182).Music sociologists and many ethnomusicologists have by now recognized that any music can be better conceptualized in emic terms, i.e., according to the criteria of classification, of esthetic, functional a n d general cultural values of the people or social group who create and consume that music. Critics of mass culture have argued that consumers of popular music (or any other cultural product) are passive agents suffering from commercial exploitation. Among others, Haag h a s argued t h a t Popular culture does not grow within a group. It is manufactured by one group-in Hollywood or in New York- for sale to a n anonymous mass market. The product must meet a n average of tastes, and it loses in spontaneity and individuality what it gains in accessibility and cheapness (Haag 1959519).

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While this statement reflects a clearly ethnocentric judgment and deals with a n unidirectional view of the commercial manipulation of a cultural product, it does not consider the process of the “manufacture” and of the cultural growth of that product within a group. I submit that social groups develop mechanisms of acceptance and rejection of products imposed upon them “from above.” Such mechanisms involve the nature of the product and its affinities with the emic views of the group. Admittedly, analytic tools for explaining the exact operation of these mechanisms are limited at present. There appears to exist a n unverbalized collective consciousness in a given social group that defines the appropriateness and admissibility of a given cultural product for that group. True, commercial advertisement of a product may influence that consciousness by altering the perception of a n artistic product, but it cannot, in most cases, create the necessary conditioning to make acceptable a cultural product which contains elements alien to the culture of the group. In the present study, I propose to illustrate some of the main trends of Brazilian popular musicassociated with bossa nova since about 1960,their socio-cultural meaning for the corresponding producing and consuming groups, their relationships to or influences from foreign models, and the various cultural values that they express. While MPB is a generic term, it will become clear that the Brazilian case demonstrates the heterogeneity of popular music and exemplifies the process of the development of a given musical product. Specific composers/interpreters will be singled out and some of their compositions or performances briefly analyzed as relevant representatives of the trends discussed.

The original Bossa Nova I have described elsewhere (B;hague 1973)the bossa nova phenomenon of the late 1950s, focusing particularly on the social circumstances of its appearance and on the musical stylistic innovations brought about by bossa nova musicians. It is, however, necessary to further emphasize, with the proper historical perspective, the sociology of that special musical style. The endless polemic discussions that arose in Brazil at the time of the release of the first major album of Jog0 Gilberto (Chega de Saudade [Enough of Nostalgia], Odeon MOFB 3073) in March 1959, centered primarily on the alleged disruption of the urban samba tradition through the intrusion of foreign styles, particularly American jazz. Bossa nova was also condemned, allegedly for the separation of the samba from its truly popular origins. The early bossa nova musicians, such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Johnny Alf, Joao Gilberto, Carlos Lira, and Baden Powell, were considered alien to the urban popular cultural context because most of them originated from upper-middle-class families, represented by Rio’s Southern districts of Copacabana or Ipanema. Referring to the parenthood of bossa nova, Ramos Tinhorgo remarked sarcastically in 1966: Daughter of secret “adventures of apartment” with North American music (which is unquestionably its mother), bossa nova, in what concerns its paternity, lives even today the drama of so many children of Copacabana, the district where it was born: it doesn’t know who its father is. (Tinhorgo 1966:17).

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The predicatqd divorce between these musicians and urban culture in general appears ill-conceived as a result of the holistic category concept of popular music mentioned above. The decade of the 1950s saw, specifically in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador (Bahia) and STo Paulo, the emergence of a new generation whose aspirations to modernity coincided with post-war progress toward industrialization and modernization. Although such aspirations have been blamed for the appearance of a new sort of cultural alienation, the fact that bossa nova represented at that time a perfectly legitimate, albeit somewhat elitist urban popular musical trend, seems hardly debatable nowadays. At first, both producers and consumers of bossa nova music formed a social group defined in terms of generational and socio-economic cultural references, just a s the cultivators of the classic samba of the 1930s and 1940s formed their own. Most of these young bossa nova musicians were amateurs, in some cases having received some formal musical training, and all were great admirers of modern jazz (especially of the “cool” style of Miles Davis and others). That jazz gave rise to bossa nova, however, overstates the case. Amateur jazzmen in their own right, these musicians sought in certain jazz stylistic practices (and not rock-androll, the truly fashionable style of the 1950s) the innovating elements of Brazilian popular music. But bossa nova did not result from jazz or other imported styles. The only jazz idioms that found their way into early bossa nova pieces included harmonic practices (particularly altered chords and a heavy reliance on non-harmonic tones) and timbre blending {small ensembles of piano, double bass, acoustic or electric guitar, sax, trumpet, and drum set). Some performance traits, particularly the subdued tone of the voice, could be related to the “cool” jazz performance ideals, but the typical vocalizing on nonsense syllables had precedents in the classic era of the samba. Despite numerous assertions to the contrary, improvisation played a minimal role in bossa nova performance characterization. The only exceptions to such a statement are to be found in strictly instrumental (guitar) pieces based on traditional samba tunes whose harmonic implications constitute the essence of the melodic elaboration of such pieces (Bchague 1973: 212-213). In effect, the main procedure a t work in guitar compositions of this sort (e.g. Baden Powell’s interpretation of Garota de Ipanema) [Girl f r o m Ipanema]) is simply that of melodic variation of a n implied theme. The overall improvisatory or rhapsodic character of many bossa nova songs came from the deliberate wish to expressive understatment, achieved through such means as softened vocal production, sonorous integration of solo and accompanying ensemble, unpredictability of melodic shapes, and general restraint in sound production. The colloquial nature of songtexts reinforced through the frequent use of the local lingo, the search for the most direct and simplest way of communication in which a word’s sonorous individuality received a s much attention as its semantic meaning, the general avoidance of rhetoric coupled with highly contrasting dramatic musical effects, all reflected the essential esthetic values of the bossa nova musician. The gross misunderstanding outside Brazil of this esthetic of understatement accounted for the use of bossa nova-like music in the 1960s as “cocktail” music or background music for advertisements. The poetic sophistication of bossa nova texts further alienated the

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cultivators of the new style from popular culture roots, in the opinion of some critics. Thematically, however, early bossa nova songs differed little from previous songs’ subject matter, including amatory topics (e.g. Jobim’s (1 nosso amor [Our Love], 1958; M e d i t a c z , [Meditation], 1960),devotion to nature mixed with Romantic introspection (e.g. Jobim’s Corcovado, 19601, philosophical commentaries (e.g. Jobim’s Chega de Saudade, 1958; Ilesafinado, 1958; Discuss% [Discussion], 1960; Samba de u m a nota s6 [Yamha o n one note onLyyl, 1960), and narratives describing typical local figures or dances in the context of the urban life (e.g. Jobim’s Garota de Ipanerna, 1963; Samba d o a&), [Airplane Samba], 1963). Traditional Romantic love themes continued to represent by far the majority of bossa nova songs which inherited such themes from previous popular genres, especially the samba-cangzo, a highly sentimental, slow-paced samba which first appeared around 1928 and suffered bolero rhythmic influence in the 1950s (hence sometimes referred to as sambolero). If the thematic categories of bossa nova songs did not change radically, the poetic substance and treatment revealed drastic innovations. Beginning with poets in the 1950s of the caliber of Vinicius de Morais, bossa nova popular music in the 1960s and 1970s counted on the unprecedented poetic refinement and creative originality of such composer-poets a s Newton Mendonsa, Chico Buarque, Capinam, Torquato Neto, Caetano Veloso, and Gilbert0 Gil, among others. The deliberately intimate character of bossa nova expression in general called not only for simplicity of language (reinforced by colloquialism),but also for specific sound effects of the words, showing some affinity with concrete poetry of the early 1960s (Campos 1968: 34-35). This remarkable preoccupation with the language’s sounds also justified the close relationship of text and melody in many bossa nova songs. Jobim’s Desafinado (with text by Newton Mendonca) appears a s the archetype of bossa nova expression. Desafinado (Literally “Out of tune”) has often been interpreted a s the esthetic manifesto of early bossa nova (in fact, the term bossa nova here appears in a song for the first time). In relation to its textual contents, the song was meant as a n ironic, satirical response to the accusation that bossa nova music was unnatural in the Brazilian context, and that the followers of that trend were insecure (“desafinados”) musicians attempting to assimilate and incorporate jazz idioms into Brazilian popular music. The songtext takes the form of a conversation between the singer and his girlfriend, who represnts the antibossa nova party. The singer rebuts here the accusation of his “antimusical” behavior with the “very natural” phenomenon of “bossa nova,” since, he argues, the so-called “desafinados” are just a s human a s anyone else, capable of true human emotion such a s the singer’s deep love for his critical, ungrateful girlfriend:

Desafinado (Newton Mendonca, Antonio Carlos Jobim) se voc? disser que eu desafino. a m o r s a i b a que isso em m i m provoca imensa dor so’ privilegiados t%n ouvido igual a o seu eu possuo apenas o que Deus me deu.

if you s a y t h a t I’m our of tune, love t h i s hurt s me a great deal only privileged people h a v e a n ear like yours I only h a v e t h a t which God gave me

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se voc2 insiste em c1assific;ir rneu comportamento de antimusical eu mesmo mentindo d e w argurnentar que isto e‘ bossn nova que isio k muito natural.

if p u insist on classifying my hehavior as anti-musical. even lying I must argue t h a t this i s hossa nnva this is very natural.

a clue voc? ngo sahe

what you don’t know or even predict is that the “out-of-tune” also have a heart. I photographed you with my rolley-flex: your enormous ingratitude was thus revealed.

nern sequer presente L. que os desafinados t a r n b k ti?m um corafao fotografei vocg n a minha rolley-flex revelou-se a sua enorme ingratidgo.

s6 n% poderg falar assim do nleu amor ele e/o maior que voc: pode cncontrar, viu v o d c o m a s u a mu’sica esqueceu o principal que n o peito dos desafinados no fundo do peito bate calado no peito dos desafinados tarnbe‘m bate urn cora&.

you can’t talk like that of my love. it’s the greatest you c a n find. with your music you forgot the main point t h a t in the breast of the “out-of-tune” deep in their hreast quietly beats a heart.

Jobim’s composition musically complements the meaning of the songtext, specifically by translating the idea of singing out-of-tune with unexpected melodic alterations (chromatic tones) strategically placed a t the end of each verse, corresponding to the ending of each melodic phrase. The well-known functional ambivalence of chromatic tones in Western tonality here admirably serves the intention of the songtext and constitutes, a t the same time, what came to be identified later as the trademark of bossa nova. The same chromaticism applied to harmonic progressions, creating modulations unknown in previous Brazilian popular musical styles, came to be regarded as one aspect of the modernizing qualities of bossa nova. Desafinado also exemplifies the esthetic of the understatment through its economy of verbal and musical means. The narrative is direct; there is no repetiton of text. With only slight repetiton of melodic phrases, the music sets the text syllabically and unfolds in a minimum of time. Such characteristics of economy of expressive means were also becoming part of the social behavior of young people in the late 1950sof the middle and uppermiddle classes. The traditional Luso-Brazilian verbosity was considered alien to the new, restraining verbal expression of the youth culture whose developing values began to create the inevitable generation gap of the 1960s. Bossa nova did not replace, as is often believed, the traditional classic urban samba; rather, it became the trademark of the young segment of urban middle and upper-middle classes, who simultaneoulsy adopted the musical expressions of other urban groups. In contrast to these musical expressions, early bossa nova music externally conveyed the impression of a carefree, hedonistic group of young people quietly singing along Rio de Janeiro’s beaches their serene Joie De Vivre mixed with a certain lyrical nostalgia (saudades). The carioca expression “Tb n a minha, t&n a dzle”

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[“doing one’s own thing”] appeared in the late 1950s or early 1960s, reflecting the existential philosophy of the times, s o common among other Western youth movements. A Special Case: Chico Buarque Up until about 1964, bossa nova esthetic ideals remained unchanged. After that time, however, a new social awareness developed among bossa nova musicians. Perhaps the best illustration of a musician-poet with enormously creative powers and a vivid social consciousness is Chico Buarque de Hollanda (b. 1944), the son of one of Brazil’s most noted historians. He began his career 2 a musician in 1964 while studying architecture at the University of Sao Paulo. In 1965, his first songs (Pedro Pedreiro and Sonho de urn Carnaual [Carnival Dream]) were issued on a 45 record and brought him some public recognition. Although of quite different nature, both songs reveal Chico Buarque’s two main creative facets and styles. Sonho de urn Carnaual, more than any other song of the bossa nova repertory up to that time, establishes a clear and clever link with the more traditional samba of the 1930s and 1940s and carnival music in general. It emphasized the well-known values of older popular music and a n easily acceptable style, and was followed with other national hits, such a s 018, Old (1966) and A Banda [A Band], (1966), the last a typical sarnival march which won him the first prize at the I1 MPB Festival in Sao Paulo (1966). Pedro Pedreiro, on the other hand, initiates among bossa nova musicians the trend toward social participation and protest. Other songs of the same year (e.g. JoZo de Vale’s Carcard[Vulture]which launched the career of the singer Maria Betania) also belonged to this general category of songs of social protest, but most frequently the protest took the form of simply exposing some of the social problems of underdevelopment, hunger, and injustice in the distant hinterland of the Northeast. With Pedro Pedreiro, Chico Buarque took issue with the urban conditions of Northeastern migrant workers in large Southern cities. Pcdro Prdreiro (Chico Buarque de Hollanda) Pedro Pedreiro penseiro esperando o trem m a n h z parece, carece de esperar tambe‘m para o hem de quem tern hem, de quem n%o tem vint6m Pedro Pedreiro fica assim pensando assim pensando o tempo passa a gente vai ficando para tra’. Esperando, esperando, esperando, esperando o sol, esperando o trem, esperando o aumento desde o ano passado para o m& que vem. Esperando a festa, esperando a sorte a mulher de Pedro e s t i esperando um filho pra esperar tamhgm Pedro Pedreiro. . . . . Pedro Pedreiro esta’ esperando a morte ou esperando o dia de voltar pro’ norte Pedro nTo sabe mas talvez no fundo espera algurna coisa mais linda que o mundo maior do que o mar, mas pra que sonhar

Thoughtful Pedro Pedreiro waiting for the train. morning, it seems, doesn’t wait for the sake of those who have happiness, of those who are penniless. Pedro Pedreiro is there thinking, through thinking time passes one gets behind. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for the sun, for the train, since last year for next month’s pay raise. Waiting for happiness, for luck, and Pedro‘s wife expecting (awaiting the birth of a child) to wait also. Pedro Pedreiro . . . . . Pedro Pedreiro is waiting for death or the day to go back North Pedro doesn’t know but perhaps he’s really waiting for something more beautiful t h a n the world,

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se da’o desespho de esperar demais Pedro Pedreiro quer voltar a t r & quer ser pedreiro, pohre e nada mais sem ficar esperando, esperando; . . . . esperando enfim n a d a mais alem que a esperansa aflita, bendita, infinita do apito do trem Pedro Pedreiro pedreiro esperando o trem clue ja’ v e m . . . . .

greater than the sea, hut why dream if it creates despair of waiting too much Pedro Pedreiro wants to K O hack, wants to he a “pedreiro” (roadworker) poor a n d nothing more, without waiting, waiting.. . waiting for nothing else beyond hut the afflicted, blessed a n d infinite hope of the train’s whistle. Pedro I’edreiro waiting for the train that’s coming.. . . .

While the melodic ideas of this song follow well established standards of Brazilian classic popular music and avoid the chromaticism of bossa nova melody a s such, they appear the more effective in the setting of the text, the focal point of the song as is often the case in Chico Buarque’s song output. Here the conscientious reliance on the sounds of the words reinforces their semantic meaning. Through alliteration the composer extracts specific rhythmic effects from the consonants, e.g., “Pedro pedreiro esperando penseiro” or “parece, carece,” from nasalized syllables, e.g., “tambkm Para o bem de quem tem hem, de quem nao tem vint6m;” and from specific vowel sounds, e.g. “aflita, bendita, infinita.” Although alliteration is a well known devise of poetry for sound effect, it takes on a truly semantic dimension here. Musically, alliteration gives the voice a percussive performing style which naturally reinforces the rhythmic effects of the song. Repetition also appears as a focal point of the song structure. For example, the repetition of “esperando” not only actively reinforces the rather static situation, but a t the same time conveys the idea of the monotony and limitations of the typical slum life of a Northern migrant worker. The juxtaposition of various senses of the word “esperar” also enhances the social message and contents of the song, (e.g., the simple, concrete fact of “waiting for the train,” the poetic image of “waiting for the sun,” the realistic wait for the longpromised salary raise), the reinforced reality of the expecting, that is, pregnant (in Portuguese “esperar”) wife of the worker, and the climactic comment of a n entire existence based on “hope” (Portuguese “esperanca”). The specific sequence of the placement of such words in the song explains the setting: a poor worker meditating about his existence while waiting for his train, having a few mental flashes of some of the difficulties of his life in the big city, realizing his bitter disappointment in having left his native Northern land in the hope and promise of a better life, his determination to go back after a long and patient wait, and finally being brought back to reality by the train’s whistle. This early song reveals the composer’s empathy for and ability to understand some of the conditions of the urban working class. His concentrated poetic language full of emotional impact became highly sophisticated in later songs and appears, in retrospect, to be one of the essential reasons for his popularity among various social urban groups. The song Constru$o (1971) provides one of the best examples of the mature compositional and poetic talents of Chico Buarque.

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Amou daquela vez como se fosse a ultima Reijou su a mulher como se fosse a h n a E cada filho seu como se fosse o &co E atravessou a rua corn seu passo tfmido Subiu a construc*gpomo se fosse m l q u i n a Ergueu no p a t a m k q u a t r o paredes s6lidas Tijolo com tijolo num desenho m&co Seus olhos embotados de cimento e l h r i m a Sentou p r a descansar como se fosse sgbado , Cnmeu f e i jG com arroz como se fosse um principe Bebeu e s o l u ~ como , ~ ~ se fosse urn nfiufrago D a n p e gargalhou como se ouvisse m h c a E trope ou no c6u como se fosse urn b2bado 5 E flutuou no a r como se fosse um pAssaro E se acabou no chzo feito urn pacote flgcido Ayonizou no meio do passeio piblico Morreu n a contra-myo atrapalhando o trgfego.. . Amou daquela vez como se fosse o 6Itimo Reijou s u a rnulher como se fosse a &a E cada filho seu como se fosse o pr6digo E atravessou a rua com seu passo b%bado Subiu a construfzo como s e fosse sglido Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes ma'gicas Tijolo corn tijolo num desenho l6gico Seus d h o s embotados de cimento e trifego Sentou pra descansar como se fosse um pni ci pe Comeu f e i j b cum arroz como se fosse o ma/ximo Hebeu e s o l u ~ o ucomo se fosse ml qui na 1)an Y)U e garyalhou como se fosse o pr6ximo F: trope ou no c b como se ouvisse mtsica 15 flutuou no ar como se fosse ssbado E se acabou no chzo feito um pacnte t h i d o Agonizou no meio do passeio nlufrayo 1 . Morreu n a contra-myo atrapalhando o pubhco. . . Amou daquela vez como se fosse mi qui na Heijou sua mulher como se fosse lcfgico /. Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes flacidas Sentou pra descansar como se fosse um pgssaro F: flutuou no a r como se fosse urn pn/ncipe I'. be dcabou . no ch% feito um pacote hGbado Morreu n a contra-m?& atrapalhando o sgbado.. ,

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Construction He loved on tha t occasion as if i t were the last He kissed his wife as if she were the last And each son of his as if he were the only one And he crossed the street with his timid step He climbed the construction (building structure) as if he were a machine He erected in the stair landing four solid walls Brick after brick in a magic deslgn His eyes numbed with cement a n d tear He s a t to rest as if it were Saturday He ate rice and beans as if he were a prince He drank and sobbed as if he were a shipwrecked person He danced a nd guffawed a s if he listened to music And stumbled in the sky as if he were drunk And floated in the air as if he were a bird And ended up on the ground as a flaccid package He agonized in the middle of the public walk He died on the wrong side of the street disturbing the traffic.. . He loved on t h a t occasion as if he were the last He kissed his wife as if s h e were the only one a n d each son of his as if he were prod iga1 And he crossed the street with his drunken step He climbed the construction as if he were solid (strong) He erected in the stair landing four magic walls Brick after brick in a logical design His eyes numbed with cement a n d traffic He sat to rest as if he were a prince He a t e rice and beans a s if it were the greatest thing He drank a n d sobbed as if he were a machine He danced a n d guffawed as if he were his fellow man And stumbled in the sky as if he listened to music And floated in the air as if it were Saturday And ended up on the ground as a timid package He agonized in the middle of the stranded walk

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Journal of Popular Culture He died on the wrong side of the street disturbing the public.. . He loved on t h a t occasion as if he were a machine He kissed his wife as if it were logical He erected i n the stair landing four flaccid walls He sat to rest as if he were a bird And floated in the air as if he were a prince And ended up on the ground as a drunken package He died on the wrong side of the street disturbing Saturday. . .

I h s lhe pague Por esse pZo pra comer, por esse chzo pra dormir A certidz) pra nascer e a concessgo pra s o m r Por me deixar respirar, por me deixar existir 1)eus Ihe pague. . . Pela cachasa de g r a sa que a gente tem que engolir Pela fumapa desgrasa que a gente tem que tossir Pelos andaimes pingentes q u e a gente tem que cair Deus Ihe pague.. . Pela mulher carpideira. pra nos louvar e cuspir E pelas moscas bicheiras a nos beijar e cobrir E pela paz derradeira que enfim vai nos redimir Deus Ihe pague.. .

God Bless You For this bread to eat, for this ground to sleep The certification for being born, a n d the concession for smiling For letting me breathe, for letting me be, God bless y o u . . . For the free cach ca (sugar cane alcohol) 9 t h a t one h a s to swallow For the miserable smoke tha t one h a s to cough For the hanging scaffoldings from which one h a s to fall God hless you. . . For the professional (female) mourner to praise u s a n d spit (on us) For the wormy flies to kiss a n d cover us And for the final peace t h a t will at last redeem u s God hless you. . .

From what may appear at first as a simple tragic daily event of a construction worker’s accidental death, the poet-composer develops a much deeper significance in his narrative by transforming it into a n existential, philosophical statement in which the will to live is obliterated as the result of urban disillusion and frustration. The emotional impact of the text arises primarily through contrasts, oppositions or apparent contextual contradictions, such as “rice and beans” (the daily food of the poor) opposed to “prince,” the intimacy of home life against death in a public place, the irony of the dehumanization of life and death (conveyed in the songtext by juxtaposing “death” and “disturbing the traffic”) and the consequent devaluation of human life in our modern, urban civilization (one’s death disturbing the public). The major structural element of the songtext emanates from the conjunction “come se” (as if) which functions as the pivot of the structural balance of the phrase. Moreover, the conjunction allows the effective changes of meaning and expressions of images in the two repeats of the verse. Hence, the “timid” step of the first verse becomes the “drunken” step in the second verse, the “solid” walls become the

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‘‘magic’’ walls, the “magic” design is changed into a “logical” one. The careful shift of adjectives or nouns reminds one of concrete poetry techniques and reinforces the sense of ordering mental states and images in kaleidoscopic cycles. A cyclic treatment based on repetition organizes the music as well. The main melodic ideas of the song are based on simple repetition of tones and rather conjunct motion, but the actual arrangement (orchestration and choral setting)is conceived of as a huge crescendo which supports very effectively the ultimate purpose of the song: protest. The original recording of ConstrupZo [Construction] by Chico Buarque includes a sort of coda consisting of a few lines of another song of his, Deus Zhepague [God bless you]. This a posteriori addition was probably felt necessary to emphasize the irony of the situation and to serve as a sort of mournful prayer in a strongly militant musical character. Frustration over the meaning of existence, and constant repression of the most basic human feelings, lead to a negative picture of existential fulfillment and eventually to a n angry cry of rejection of the status quo. Chico Buarque’s position in the “modern” movement of Brazilian popular music (referred to as MMPB or Moderna M6sica Popular Brasileira) has been variously interpreted. Most well-intentioned critics have argued that his popularity and creative talents are due essentially to the appeal and quality of his lyrics rather than his actualmusic. In his 1975 interview with representatives of the satirical publication 0 Pasquim, Chico Buarque stated that he does not conceive of song lyrics as equivalent to poetry and does not believe that one should separate the textual from the musical contents of a song. (0 Som do Pasquim [The Sound of Pasquim] 1976:17). Indeed, as a composer his first pieces show that integration of text and music. Moreover, he is unique as a composer of the bossa nova generation in that he succeeded in assimilating and maintaining the essential aspects (primarily melodically and rhythmically) of the classic urban sambas of Noel Rosa of the 1930s, and thus established the continuity of the tradition, as opposed to the early bossa nova musicians who refuted that tradition to a certain extent. Buarque’s residence in Italy in 1969 and part of 1970 was beneficial for his musical development, as he matured considerably due to his exposure to the European popular musical scene of the time. He was often blamed for the stylistic homogeneity of his early songs, that is, his very predictable musical style. His compositions since the early 1970s, however, reveal a dynamic diversity of musical thought much too rare among other Brazilian composers. This was accompanied by a period of reflection on the sociocultural problems of Brazil and his own ideological reaction to them. In many of his songs (Bom Conselho, [Good Advice], Cotidiano [Daily Routine], Apesar de Voci?[In Spite of You],to name a few) he advocated in his familiar lyrical and poetic ways a certain subtle action of subversion and anarchy as the only hopeful attitude toward Brazil’s contemporary problems. However subtle such a n advocacy might be, it explains why so many of his songs and plays were censored in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Walnice GalvXo, in her penetrating interpretation of Chico Buarque’s early songs, found skeptical attitude which negates man’s possibility of transforming the world in which helives. She believed that the concern over

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human misfortune and the lamentation of individual destiny result in “conservative fatalism.” Hence, she stated “there are in Brazilian popular songs no signs of a n advanced consciousness nor a proposition toward a n y action besides the very act of singing.” (Galvgo 1976: 118-119).Since her essay was written in 1968,one could easily concur with her assessment. At a time of rather severe censorship, one could not expect a n overt advocacy of militancy, as occurred in some of Chico’s songs of the 1970s. Moreover, he and other musicians active after the military regime was imposed in 1964 felt that a surreptitious language was better than silence.

Tropiccilia: Dada and Cultural Anthropophagy Around the mid-l960s, a group of musician-poet-performers known as TropicAlia, mostly from Bahia, emerged on the Brazilian scene. Including such different personalities as Caetano Veloso, Gilbert0 Gil, Gal Costa, Jose‘ Carlos Capinam, Torquato Neto, Tom Z6, the bossa nova singer Nara LeZo, and the composer-arranger Roge‘rio Duprat, the group’s essential common denominator came from the adherence of its members to the basic concepts of “modernismo” set forth in the 1920s by such literary philosophical figures as Oswald de Andrade and M&io de Andrade. In the wprds of Veloso, the theoretical spokesman of the group, Tropicalia or “tropicalismo” was a neo-cultural cannibalism or “anthropophagism,” r e f e r r i n g t o Oswald de Andrade’s M a n i f e s t o a n t r o p o f d g i c o [Anthropophagic Manifesto] of 1928. Influenced by the French Dadaist whose manifesto was written ten years earlier and consisted of a violent attack on Western thought, Andrade’s manifesto appeared as a tropical adaptation of the Dadaist dissension, questioning the imposition of the European element in Brazilian culture and the ensuing destruction of native cultural values. “Tupi, or not tupi, that is the question” is the first metaphor of Andrade’s manifesto-Tupi here refers to any member of one of Brazil’s coastal Indian peoples. While Andrade attempts no clearcut answer, he points out the apparent contradictions and contrasts of the Brazilian reality. For the Tropica’lia musicians this meant “a justification for the absorption (literally the “deglutination”) of foreign musical experience adapted to the needs of the moment,” (Bghague 1973:217) as a recognition of the international dimension of Brazilian popular culture of the period. Such a recognition, however, neither implied a simple imitation of foreign models nor resulted from the influence of international mass culture, as several critics led us to believe a t the time (cf.TinhorXo 1974:234). For the TropicAlia group, modernism not only signified revitalization through innovations of MPB, but also the definite involvement of its members in the prevailing socio-political conditions. Theirs was not a “conservative fatalism,” but rather an aggressive attack on traditional middle-class values and on the sacrosanct dialectic reason of Western culture so much rooted in Brazilian traditions. For more effective communication of their messages, they resorted to the Dadaist, Andradean device of what at first appears to be the cult of the “absurd” to deliberately shock, and the device of a concerted denunciation of the contradictions of Western thought. In one of his most widely discussed articles, Roberto Schwarz directed several objections to the ideological position of TropicLlia,

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particularly its contribution to what he called the “petrifaction” of the absurd a s a n eternal evil of Brazil. (Schwar/z 1970). One could argue, however, that the ideological attitude of Tropicalia musicians did not entail a rigorous and everlasting dogma. As a truly socio-political action, “tropicalismo” did not, in retrospect, intend to perpetuate anything; rather it was meant to awaken the consciousness of the middle class to the Brazilian tragedy of poverty, exploitation and oppression, and to point out the true nature of the mo,dern Brazilian reality. Musically, the Tropicalia movement brought about drastic innovations by widening the Brazilian musical horizon through adherence to and adaptation of the most relevant musical trends of the 1960s, i.e., the rockBeatles phenomenon, and the experimental, new musics of the electronic age. Rock music penetrated the Brazilian scene during the period 1964-1966 and had in Roberto Carlos the local translator of that youth movement. The “i;, ie^,ip? style, as it was known in Brazil, immediately revealed the prevailing strong prejudices against international pop music and its representatives, and its popularity among the Brazilian “Jovem Guarda” [“Young Guard”] was seen as a threat to the traditional values of popular music. This phenomenon stimulated the early recognition by the Tropicalistas of the validity of the Young Guard as a n integral part of modern Brazilian popular culture. Roberto Carlos himself h a s acknowledged the influence of the “ig, 2, i8” style on Caetano Veloso’s music, particularly in his incorporation of electric and bass guitars, and his imitation of some rhythmic and arrangement models (0Som do Pasquim 1976:144). The level of musical and textual sophistication of TropicAlia, however, had no counterpart in Brazilian rock style. It would be inaccurate to refer to a homogeneous “tropical” musical style, since the essence of the Tropicalia “song style” is hybridization. As one of the musical goals of the Tropicalistas was to liberate Brazilian music from a restrictive system of prejudice by creating the appropriate conditions for freedom of research and experimentation, all musical sources relevant to contemporary Brazil were drawn together: Luso-Brazilian, Afro-Brazilian folk music expressions, bossa nova samba oj .he early phase, ‘56, i6, iE,” and elements of jazz and experimental music. Techniques of simultaneous musical quotations 4 la Charles Ives, collages of sound associations, and compositional montages of sound bits and pieces, a priori deemed irreconcilable and meaningless, essentially constituted the empirical approach of the Tropicglia musicans to music composition. Such a “style,” which often recalls the pop movement in the arts, justifies itself as a creative means to reinforce the contents of the lyrics. The language of the songtexts is frequently telegraphic, fragmentary, and likewise is based on quotations, associations, or deliberate distortions of famous examples of Brazilian belles lettres. Representative examples are Caetano Veloso’s Alegria, alegria [Joy, Joy] (1967) and Gilberto Gil’s Domingo no parque (1967), analyzed elsewhere (B‘ehague 1973:216).The following song, Gele‘ia Geral [General Jam], by Gilberto Gil, with texts by Torquato Neto, provides a n excellent illustration of Tropicalia: Gel& Geral (Torquato Neto, G. Gil)

General Jam

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0 poeta desfolha a bandeira E a manhy tropical se inicia Resplandente, cadente, fagueira Num calor girassol com alegria Na gel&a geral brasileira Que o Jornal do B r a d anuncia

The poet unfurls the flag The tropical morning begins Resplendent, cascading, gracious In a joyous sunflower heat In the general Brazilian jam Announced in the Jornal do B r a d

E bumba ie“i$ boi Ano que vem, m’ks que foi E bumba i6 i8 i& E a mesma danya, meu boi (bis)

It’s bumba yea-yea bull The coming year, the month gone by It’s burnba yea-yea-yea It’s the same dance, my bull (bis)

Alegria e‘ a prova dos nove A tristeza teu p%to seguro Minha terra onde o sol k mais limpo E “Mangueira” onde o samba t! mais puro Tumbadora na selva selvagem Pindorama pa