World Listening Post

A Missed Beat Restored

Listening Post 352. Long story short: During a university semester break in 2002, Roberta Sá successfully auditioned for Fama, a talent show on Brazil’s TV Globo. A four-week stint in the national spotlight landed her a manager, leading to her performing a song by Dorival Caymmi for the soundtrack of a prime-time telenovela; her first album contract soon followed. In the succeeding years Sá became an icon of MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) and especially of samba. Career highlights include the closing ceremony of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro when she channeled the spirit and sang the repertoire of Carmen Miranda, and a collection of songs written exclusively for her by Gilberto Gil. But if Sá’s upward climb has been smooth, some of her fans missed a beat: While she was mixing her first studio album in 2004, a multinational company commissioned her to record Sambas & Bossas, a 10-track disc they used as a promotional gift to clients but which was never commercially released. Until now. The collection features songs by the cream of samba composers and poets. Sá’s voice sails lightly through Chega de Saudade (No More Blues, video 1), the seminal bossa nova work by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes; and she uses her percussion-strings-flute accompaniment like a springboard as she leaps into Alegria/O Sol Nascerá (Joy/The Sun Will Rise, video 2) by the great sambista Cartola. Though most of the collection’s songs are classics, the softly melancholy Samba de Um Minuto (One-Minute Samba, video 3) was a freshly minted exception. In Falsa Baiana (Phony Baiana, video 4), Brazil’s signature dance is a metaphor for taking life by the horns; while Fica Melhor Assim (It’s Better This Way, video 5) is a tale of starting over. Sá’s vintage/new seventh album is a captivating look back to her own auspicious start that also carries some great songs forward. (Bolachão Discos/Altafonte)

Roberta Sá: Sambas & Bossas
Roberta Sá: Vocals
Rodrigo Campello: Guitars, cavaco, keyboards, bass, programming, music producer
Zé Bigorna: Flutes
Jovi Joviniano: Percussion

Related posts. Roberta Sá: Delirio, Listening Post 65, September 19, 2016. https://worldlisteningpost.com/2016/09/19/roberta-sa-delirio/
Roberta Sá: Giro, Listening Post 244, March 18, 2020. https://worldlisteningpost.com/2020/03/18/roberta-sa-giro/

 

Chega de Saudade / No More Blues *
Lyrics: Vinicius de Moraes/Music: Antônio Carlos Jobim

(From the Portuguese lyrics)
Go, my sadness/And tell her/That without her I can’t exist
Tell her in a prayer/To come back/Because I can’t suffer any longer

No more blues/The reality/Is that without her
There’s no peace/There’s no beauty/It’s just sadness/And melancholy
That won’t leave me/Won’t leave me/Won’t leave

But if she returns/If she returns/What a wonderful thing/What a crazy thing
Because there are fewer fish/Swimming in the sea/Than the little kisses I’ll place on her lips

In my arms/Hugs will number/In the millions
Tight like this/Glued like this/Silent like this/Hugs and kisses and affection without limit
To put an end to all this business/Of living far from me
Let’s leave behind this business/Of you living without me
I want no more of this business/Of you far me

*Brazilians and Portuguese alike often insist that the word saudade cannot be translated into to other languages. The truth is that it cannot be distilled into a single word (although the Welsh concept of “hireath” comes close). Saudade rests at the intersection of longing, nostalgia, melancholy and a dash of hope, a feeling directed at a person, place or time in the past, or in a future that may or may not come to pass. And since this elaborate translation doesn’t fit into a song title, Chega de Saudade has traditionally been rendered into English as “No More Blues.”

 

Alegria / Joy
Lyrics & music: Cartola
O Sol Nascera / The Sun Will Rise
Lyrics: Cartola/Music: Elton Antônio Medeiros

Happiness/That’s what I was missing
A vague hope/That I’ve finally found
For the caresses you give me/You can just leave me in peace
I don’t want to see you/Ever again

I know/That your kisses and hugs
Don’t amount to more/Than pure hypocrisy
And since you’re not sincere/I’ll abandon you, one day

Happiness, happiness/That’s what I was missing
A vague hope/That I’ve finally found
For the caresses you give me/You can just leave me in peace
I don’t want to see you/Ever again

I know/That your kisses and hugs
Don’t amount to more/Than pure hypocrisy
And since you’re not sincere/I’ll abandon you, one day

Smiling/I intend to take back my life
In crying/I saw my lost youth

At the end of the storm/The sun will rise
At the end of this longing/I must have someone else to love

Smiling/I intend to take back my life
In crying/I saw my lost youth
I saw my lost youth/I saw my lost youth

 

Samba de Um Minuto / One Minute Samba
Rodrigo Lopes De Albuquerque Maranhão

Slow down/Forget the weather outside
Slow down/Forget the fancy rhyme

Listen to what I’m telling you/One minute of your attention
You can’t play with my pain/I’ve already said no
You can’t play with my pain/I’ve already said no

Slow down, slow down the palanquin/Your saint is made of clay and the fountain has dried up
You don’t have so many truths to tell anymore/Nor more evil things to do

And if the pain is from saudade/And the saudade is killing you
In my heart the news/Will finally set me free

Slow down/Forget the weather outside
Slow down/Forget the fancy rhyme

Listen to what I’m going to tell you/One minute of your attention
You can’t play with my pain/I’ve already said no
You can’t play with my pain/I’ve already said no

Slow down, slow down with the palanquin/Your saint is made of clay and the fountain has dried up
You don’t have many truths to tell anymore/Nor more evil things to do
And if the pain is from saudade/And the saudade is killing you
In my heart the news/Will finally set me free

Slow down/Slow down
Slow down/Slow down

 

Falsa Baiana / Phony Baiana
Lyrics & music: Geraldo Pereira, Motoca Paulinho

A Baiana who goes to the ball and just stands still/Doesn’t sing, doesn’t samba, doesn’t kick or anything
Doesn’t know how to drive the youth crazy
A true Baiana is one who goes to the dance at any cost/Who mixes, moves, ties her hips in knots
And leaves the girls with their mouths watering

The phony Baiana, when she goes to the ball
Nobody gets excited/Nobody claps, nobody opens the circle
Nobody shouts “Wow!/Lord Save Bahia!”

But we like it when a Baiana swings just right/From top to bottom making eyes roll
And says I’m the daughter of San Salvador/Of San Salvador

A Baiana who goes to the ball and just stands still/Doesn’t sing, doesn’t samba, doesn’t kick or anything
Doesn’t know how to drive the youth crazy
A true Baiana is one who goes to the dance at any cost/Who mixes, moves, knots the chairs
And leaves the girls with their mouths watering

The phony Baiana, when she goes to the ball
Nobody gets bothered/Nobody claps, nobody opens the circle
Nobody shouts “Wow!/Lord Save Bahia!”

But we like it when a Baiana swings just right/From top to bottom making eyes roll
And says I’m the daughter of San Salvador

 

Fica Melhor Assim / It’s Better This Way
Lyrics & music: Zé Renato, Chico Chaves

I’ll go, you stay/It is better this way
My Rio de Janeiro/Illuminated behind me
The seas are words/That I leave for you
Drawn in the sand/One sentence, to the end

I’ll go, you stay/It is better this way
My whole heart/Just wants someone else
The city lights/Moments I’ve lived
The sea will erase/You from inside me

I turned off the light in the apartment/So I could come back in peace later
To the brightening sun/On the white canvas of the wall
No photos, no posters/Nothing more