"I'm a tropicalista, I always doubt the criteria used to
evaluate art. That's why many times I have preferred the chaff to the wheat."
Thirty years after Tropicália, the Municipal City Hall in Salvador,
Bahia, announced that the theme for their Carnaval next year will be Tropicalismo.
Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and Gal Costa will be playing outstanding
roles as special reverence is paid to Osmar Macedo, father of the trio
elétrico, who died recently. The event will provide an opportunity
to recall a turning point in Brazilian culture and summarize not only the
work of the three legendary Bahian musicians, but other Baianos
as well, especially poet Torquato Neto, who in partnership with Gil wrote
what became the hymn of the Tropicália movement, "Geléia
Geral": A poet unfurls the flag And the celebration has started already with the release of Tropicália
30 Anos on the Natasha Records label. Paying homage to the movement
spearheaded by Caetano, Gil, and company, the disc (see listing of titles
and performers below) features new versions of Tropicália classics
and unites tropicalistas Caetano, Gil, Tom Zé, and Gal Costa
with new generation Baianos like Margareth Menezes, Daniela Mercury,
Carlinhos Brown, and the Banda Eva. Additional commemorations of the movement include TV and radio specials;
the publication of avant-guard film maker Gláuber Rocha's correspondence;
the third edition of the assembled work of poet Torquato Neto; the book
Tropicália: A História de Uma Revolução
Musical by journalist Carlos Calado; an exhibit in Germany of the works
of plastic artist Hélio Oiticica; and a retrospective of the works
of Lygia Clark in Barcelona. Why all this hoopla? Just five years ago there
were celebrations for "25 Years of Tropicália"! The movement has been lauded, flaunted, and studied by the artistic
and academic community for years. Much has been written about it, even
outside Brazil. One begins to suspect that all this about Tropicália
is just repeated hype, another ramification of Brazil's cultural inferiority
complex. Wasn't Tropicália more a reprocessing of several things
than the start of a new genre? In interviews during the Som Brasil TV special,
Gal Costa asserted, "Tropicalismo is still a reference for a generation.
It is important that these songs are remembered." Gilberto Gil affirmed,
"Tropicália brought a new attitude, a new way of looking at
music within the culture, a feeling of plurality and democracy." What
is appearing now, after thirty years, are influential works and testimonies
of people who actually lived Tropicália. Over the past three decades, Tropicália has become a legend.
Typically, its ideas have become overgrown and obscured by fiction. Divergent
evaluations of a movement are not uncommon, but in the case of Tropicália
there is still controversy about what the movement stood for. Its admirers
are as much at odds as its critics. This situation has led to the assumption
that Tropicália lacked any coherent philosophy. Any attempt to refute
this assumption would lack historical perspective without at least a brief
account of the legend's origins. Rise and Fall Tropicália was the last great Brazilian cultural movement, a
movement to end all movements, and an insight into Brazilian reality. Not
only was it a musical movement, but an acknowledged arts movement that
manifested itself in sculpture, literature, painting, film, theater, poetry,
and the plastic arts. The name itself came from the April 1967 ambient-art
exhibition, "Tropicália," at the Museum of Modern Art
in Rio by Hélio Oiticica. Artists dreaming of a new aesthetic for
Brazil and struggling to dispel the absurd fantasy images of Brazil, brought
issues to the fore such as the consumer mentality and the impact of mass
media while at the same time urging the destruction of the political right
and the concept of Brazil as solely Carioca. It is curious that the kindling of this movement came not from the main
cultural centers of Rio and São Paulo, but from Bahia and the context
of Bahia's turbulent culture in the 1960s. There was a distinct petulance
that existed in Bahia at that time. Artists had the freedom to create,
to be ambitious, to be daring. To a large extent, this attitude stemmed
from work done by the dean of the University of Bahia, Edgar Santos, who
opened the schools of theater, dance, and music there. Universidade da
Bahia (UFBA) was a factory of ideas where young Baianos formulated
the vision of an artistic vanguard and strove to create works that would
appear advanced even to the "First World." Professors like instrument
inventor Walter Smetak and author/theater director Luis Carlos Maciel taught
pioneering concepts about art that influenced an entire generation. Encouraged
by this attitude and by the presence of these innovative minds, the stage
was set for a cultural boiling over. If the public didn't understand, damn
them! Tropicália had the same intention to modernize Brazilian culture
as the Semana de Arte Moderna movement of 1922, which was a revolt against
the conservative tradition that took place in São Paulo. Semana
de Arte advocated a liberation from precepts and preconceived notions;
it rebelled against the exaggerated eloquence and false reverence for the
fine arts. Metaphors of cannibalism were employed to encourage the creative
adaptation and integration of European aesthetic ideas. Artists devoured
the classical art that was considered passé and infused it with
their personal vision reconstituting it in original new forms. Semana de
Arte moved toward a Brazilian view of the world under a cannibalistic banner,
toward a critical assimilation of the foreign experience and its reconstitution
in terms and circumstances Brazilian. The movement of 1922 was marked by
a rebellious, anti-establishment spirit, but in terms of ideology it developed
as dynamic nationalism. The roots of Tropicália lie in the Semana de Arte Moderna movement,
but its flowering was connected to something completely new to Brazil,
a phenomenon the government and public was not prepared for: a counterculture.
This was something "first world," and at the same time genuinely
Brazilian. It was a counterculture that was dazzled by what was happening
in the United States and England where the artist was placed in front of
reality, free and unconditionally. A sense of exhilaration developed, manifesting
an uncontrollable urge to absorb everything. Perceptions of art were stripped
down to their barest components, then rearranged, recycled, and recombined
into new patterns and new relationships until only distant fragments of
the original concept remained. Everything was fair game. In 1964, with its rampant inflation and massive foreign debt, Brazil
was in a state of financial chaos. Convinced that the country had become
ungovernable and that the leftward swing of politics had gone far enough,
a group of army generals took control and embarked on a campaign of widespread
physical violence. Fire hoses were turned repeatedly on the country's citizens,
and political opponents were tortured and murdered. Repression after the
1964 military coup turned Brazil into a creative desert. Ironically, these
deplorable measures nurtured artists' creativity. Having courage became
fashionable. All disciplines exhibited imaginative and agile solutions
in order to "co-exist" with the regime's grim prohibitions. Artists
became specialists in metaphor as politics and art walked side by side.
Tropicália's musical profile was its most controversial side.
In the evolutionary chain of musical protest movements, Tropicalismo was
the next major development after bossa nova. Challenging accepted artistic
custom, tropicalistas attempted to overcome what they felt was Brazil's
musical under-development. They built a neo-cannibalistic strategy by drawing
liberally from the radical literary Modernism of the 1920s, the concrete
poets of the 1950s, as well as from samba, indigenous music, Jimi Hendrix,
and the Beatles. Emphasis was placed on uniting the most advanced musical
ideas. Compositions were perceptive, humorous, and often paradoxical blends
that created controversies, critically assessed cultural traditions, or
focused on the incongruities in society. Many examined the country's contradictory
socio-economic structure, an edifice battered by inflation where the archaic
and the modern coexisted and collided. In their effort to "turn-on"
Brazilian popular music, Tropicalistas wore radically long hair and psychedelic
clothing and used electric guitars as tactics in their cultural guerrilla
warfare. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, two Bahian musicians who advocated
creative openness and a critical revision of Brazilian popular music in
general, propelled this brief but tremendously influential movement. Gil
is a musician with an incredible rhythmic feel, an artistic temperament,
and deep emotional perception. Caetano, an intellectual and philosopher,
an irrational person fascinated with reason is often considered the movement's
central figure, both as a songwriter and a cultural agitator. Caetano recently
affirmed, however, that Gil was the one who was ahead of everybody, that
it was Gil who was the most courageous, and that Gil was leading and opened
up what Caetano, coming from behind, would later organize and frame. Notwithstanding,
the strength of Tropicalismo lay in their unique differences. In 1965 both Gil and Veloso were in São Paulo and had been exposed
to the thriving arts scene there. It was in São Paulo that they
developed the hot sound mixture concept and foreshadowed today's "mixologists."
Their idea was to create music where everything had its place: Luiz Gonzaga,
the Beatles, Chuck Berry, João Gilberto, where guitar and the pandeiro
were children of the same mother. Joining Caetano and Gil were poet-lyricists Torquato Neto and José
Carlos Capinam, songwriter Tom Zé, vocalists Gal Costa and Nara
Leão, the rock trio Os Mutantes, and composer-arranger Rogério
Duprat. The group placed particular value on the interplay of music and
text, and drew special inspiration from the most radical of the Brazilian
Modernists, Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954). With Oswald de Andrade as their
beacon, their objective was to retake the evolutionary line of Brazilian
music. The group's creative energies resulted in the collective album Tropicália
ou Panis et Circensis (Tropicália or Bread and Diversion), a
public declaration of motives and a realization of the movement's aesthetic
principles. The title, a mixture of languages, was extracted from the poet
Juvenal who voiced contempt for Roman citizens who lived like cattle, asking
for nothing more than food and entertainment. Several tracks on the Tropicália
album address social issues, but rather than denouncing injustices or the
plight of the rural poor, the collective pokes fun at the country's developmental
furor and focuses on personal alienation in Brazilian society. Tom Zé's "Parque Industrial" (Industrial Park) satirizes
the enthusiasm with which industrialization and the implantation of an
export economy were viewed as solutions to Brazil's problems. The song
also criticizes stereotyping in advertising and challenges the period's
pro-development hypothesis. "Baby" by Caetano Veloso unveils
the exaggerated importance placed on English in formulas of success, youth's
concern with being up-to-date, and the creation of false needs by consumerism.
It effectively raises questions about super-power nations tampering in
foreign affairs—suspicions ran deep that the CIA had masterminded the 1964
coup. "Geléia Geral" (General Jam)1 by Gil and
Torquato Neto synthesizes the objectives of the Bahian group in music and
text by juxtaposing the rustic with the industrial. The traditional northeastern
folk genre bumba-meu-boi is used as a rhythmic foundation, but contrasts
sharply with the electric rock instrumentation, while the tune's lyrics
mock unbridled patriotism and the pompous stature of traditional fine arts.
A collective concept album, Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis
stirred heated controversy and stimulated discussions of musical history
and the role of popular music in society. The LP has maintained a position
as one of the most important documents of contemporary Brazilian culture.
Gil and Caetano decided to use the third MPB festival (October 1967)
as forum to kick off their radical new musical movement. Annual pop music
festivals were one of the most important developments on the music scene
at this time. They were as much a national craze as soccer games. Caetano
performed "Alegria, Alegria" (Joy, Joy) backed by the Beat Boys,
a rock group from Argentina. The tune was a march with an interesting relationship
to Chico Buarque's "A Banda." Chico Buarque and Caetano were
great rivals at that time. You can actually sing the lyrics of one of these
tunes over the melody of the other. The intensely nationalistic audience
revered "authentically" Brazilian music. When they heard "Alegria,
Alegria," an anti-nationalist rock song, Caetano was booed. Many of
the listeners could not relate to its fragmented imagery: Walking against the wind Gil's entry, "Domingo no Parque" (Sunday at the Park), included
the Bahian capoeira rhythm, electric instrumentation, and cinematic
lyrics. The song's arrangement by Rogério Duprat, an orchestral
conductor with a solid background in experimental music, was strongly influenced
by the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," from their 1967 Sgt.
Pepper's album. The next year, at the Third International Song Festival in São
Paulo, Gil outraged the jury and audience with the clamorous "Questão
de Ordem" (Question of Order). The composition was disqualified shortly
before Caetano presented his latest affront, "É Proibido Proibir"
(It's Forbidden to Forbid). Veloso appeared with the rock group Os Mutantes
(The Mutants)—Sérgio Dias Baptista (guitar and vocals), his brother
Arnaldo Dias Baptista (bass, keyboards, and vocals) and Rita Lee (flute
and vocals)—who were dressed in plastic clothes for the event. Veloso was
booed even more loudly than he had been for "Alegria, Alegria"
and was unable to finish the song. He did, however, deliver a now famous
off-the-cuff discourse chastising his intolerant audience. This confrontation of deadly purism with excessive freedom seemed marketable,
and soon commercial interests were attempting to exploit the anti-establishment
sentiment of Tropicália to create a fad. But Caetano and Gil had
been living too close to the edge. They had irritated the authorities with
their tropicalista "chaos." The military regime feared
the movement might induce Brazilian youth toward a lifestyle of drugs and
anarchy. In December, 1968, the military regime decreed Ato Institucional No.
5 (Institutional Act No. 5, or AI-5) and finished off the few remaining
democratic freedoms that still survived after the 1964 coup. AI-5 removed
all human rights, everything that the constitution had guaranteed. People
were jailed without legal defense, without trials. According to the principles
of the military revolution, the people of Brazil had no rights. Tropicália
as a movement dissolved with its single collective recording effort, Tropicália
ou Panis et Circensis. Institutional Act No. 5 had lasting consequences for many tropicalistas.
Different from many of their friends on the left, they were more inclined
to face up to the dictatorship; that increased their suffering. Artistic
careers were cut short by imprisonment, torture, and beatings. Censorship
of the press hindered the public's knowledge of much of the absurd violence
that was being directed against hundreds of intellectuals, journalists,
and democratic resistors. Television programming was often interrupted
with the word "censored" boldly scripted across the screen. Constraints
were not only politically motivated; the regime also censored themes connected
with sensuality and sexuality. Student informers—censors for the regime—infiltrated
the universities and denounced both students and professors. Freedom of
speech was severely curtailed by a general sense of uneasiness and distrust
of the censor. People were afraid to talk to their neighbors. Artists like Chico Buarque and singer-songwriter Geraldo Vandré,
who were just beginning their careers and were nervous about the cuts,
impositions, and artificial techniques they were forced to use to deceive
the censors, fled the country. Buarque looked for refuge in Italy; Geraldo
Vandré went to Chile after a dangerous escape. Music critic Tárik
de Sousa, now 47 years old, who started to work for the press in 1968,
described the period as a nightmare, "We could not mention names like
Chico Buarque, not even to report news that had nothing to do with music."
Caetano and Gil were arrested on December 27, 1968, in São Paulo.
The Baianos were taken to Rio and imprisoned. A few months later
they were moved to Salvador and "invited" to leave the country.
The tropicalistas found a cold refuge in London, where they remained
in exile until 1972. Gal Costa, a singer whose lifestyle symbolized the
openness and freedom of Tropicália, recorded their songs and served
as a medium for Caetano and Gil while they were in exile. As AI-5 marked
the death of the movement, the arrest of Caetano and Gil marked its funeral
procession. The Comfort Gilberto Gil does not accept the theory that Brazil under the dictatorship
was one of the most creative periods of MPB, precisely because of the need
to go around the censors. Gil said recently that he just wrote tunes that
he wouldn't have otherwise. Lyricist Aldir Blanc also does not agree that
the seeds of creativity were greater because of the censors. Poet Waly
Salomão feels that there have been few times in Brazilian history
where the youth have been as creative as they are today. "They are
the rams butting their horns against the walls of mediocrity." Nonetheless, Luís Carlos Maciel (journalist, author, and theater
director) feels that having courage was easier in the late sixties and
that comfort now controls too much of Brazil's artistic daring. He argues
that artists want to have a house, a nice car, a computer, the Internet,
and that this contemporary paraphernalia is seducing them into a dependence
on it. In an interview with Jornal do Brasil, Maciel said, "When
people lack the disposition to abandon their comfort and have the courage
to risk, things remain static. In a context of comfort, being courageous
is difficult. But risk is exactly what artists did in the late 1960s. Tropicalismo
was more than a revolt against the military dictatorship." Maciel feels that the space for a counterculture has been significantly
reduced and that creating vanguard music, theater, or film is more difficult
now because works of art have to please the public. "If they don't,
they're finished." He acknowledged that the rules of marketing are
stronger today than they were in the 1960s and that the possibility of
another Brazilian arts movement with the magnitude of Tropicália
is weaker. What MPB would have been without this very rough interruption is difficult
to evaluate. That obscure two-year period of history ushered in a wide
spectrum of influences. Tropicália greatly accelerated MPB's musical
and textual experimentation and diversification and gave all who came after
a greater sense of freedom. The rock of the 1970s and 1980s was a direct
descendent of Tropicália. Trailblazing groups like Blitz and Titãs,
that were the most tropicalista in their approach, were responsible
for opening the doors of rock to that generation. There are traces of Tropicália
in today's Axé music, in the music of Carlinhos Brown and Chico
Science, and in the Afro-Baiano Carnaval. It would be safe to say that since Tropicalismo, nothing has been the
same. Ex-Mutante Rita Lee stated in a recent interview, "Tropicália
was a tattoo for the rest of your life, the musical kindergarten where
I learned to write lyrics in Portuguese, to sing in Spanish, to play in
English, to dance in African, and to compose in Esperanto." Tropicalista
director José Celso Martinez Corrêa (Zé Celso) said,
"We are feeling this now. It is not a vestige. Tropicália is
a feeling that is extremely current in Brazil, now that Brazil is trying
to find its own way amid globalization." What happened to the leading
intellectuals and artists behind the movement and what modifications the
movement brought to MPB and as a consequence to Brazilian culture in general
is the legacy of Tropicália. Casualties and The intellectual father of Tropicália, writer, musician, and
plastic artist Rogério Duarte, a Baiano from Ubaíra,
was detained and tortured by the military regime. The torture proved too
strong a shock for Duarte. Following detention, he was moved from a cell
in the regime's headquarters to a cubicle in the Hospital Pinel—a hospital
for the insane. He became withdrawn and self-destructive. His later years
were spent in seclusion at the Buddhist monastery of Santa Teresa in the
interior of Bahia. Today, he lives in Brasília. Duarte has recently
come out of the shadows to release a translation of part of the epic Mahabharata—the
Hindu conception of heaven and hell. Rita Lee and Gal Costa, both in their fifties, are still actively performing
and recording. Costa, the bona fide muse of Tropicália, has become
Brazil's leading female vocalist. Arnaldo Baptista from the group Os Mutantes,
who also underwent "psychiatric treatment," threw himself from
the third floor of a psychiatric ward in 1981. Tom Zé has all but
disappeared from media attention. Notwithstanding, his work from the early
seventies, during the formidable right wing repression, was impressive.
The cover art on his LP Todos os Olhos (All the Eyes) smirks at
the censors with what appears to be a giant yellow eye with a sparkling
iris, but is in actuality an asshole set with a marble, photographed in
soft focus. Poet and lyricist Torquato Neto, who in partnership with Gil wrote the
hymn of Tropicália, "Geléia Geral," and who passed
on the latest news about the universal pop underground in a column he wrote
for the newspaper Última Hora during the years marked by
the torture and political persecution, closed all the windows of his apartment
in Rio de Janeiro on November 10, 1972, and turned on the gas. He was twenty-eight
years old and had also come from a period of internment in the psychiatric
hospital. Neto left behind an amount of work small in quantity, but vast
in creative quality. The death of Torquato Neto sent a wave of shock through
the artistic community. In 1973, Waly Salomão organized and published material written
by Torquato Neto in Os Últimos Dias de Paupéria—a
wordplay on The Last Days of Pompeii. In 1982, Salomão and
Ana Maria Duarte reissued the work revised and enlarged. The publishing
house José Olympio is now planning to release the third edition
of Neto's works, still untitled, which will include pieces never published,
an exchange of letters between Neto and Hélio Oiticica, and letters
that were left out of the previous editions. Torquato Lives! Gilberto Gil's extraordinary new release of Quanta is his most
compelling work to date. Dedicated to the memory of musician Chico Science,
Quanta is an elaborate project with fertile lyrics, unforgettable
music, and luscious packaging. The liner notes open with a letter from
Brazil's most famous physicist, César Lattes and present a glossary
of words, expressions, celebrities, divinities, and historical facts cited
in Gil's lyrics. These entries are set among words from the universe of
quantum physics, the discipline from which Gil derived the CD's title.
The Brazilian release features the track "Objeto Ainda Menos Identificado"
(Object Even Less Identified) and a guest appearance by Rogério
Duarte, co-author of the 1969 composition "Objeto Semi-Identificado"
(Semi-identified Object), one of Gil's most radical poetic-musical experiments.
If Tropicalismo was truly important in the history of Brazilian music
and culture, and not just a mouse that roared, then Caetano's Verdade
Tropical (Truly Tropical) will be a book of consequence and provoke
debate for its polemic content. In his book, Veloso remembers, analyzes,
profiles, relates, and reflects on the past of Brazilian popular music
to recover his version of a country that was living under the military
dictatorship. One of the book's merits is the depth in which Caetano explores
the reasons why the events happened the way they did. Besides explaining that the violence and torture committed by the military
regime were corrupt and irreverent aspects of Brazil's profile, Verdade
Tropical reveals some surprising things about sex, drugs, rock `n roll,
and the main authors of the late 1960s cultural earthquake. Reading Verdade
Tropical (524 pages, Companhia das Letras) is an obligatory exercise
for those who have fundamental questions about what happened in Brazil.
The book is slated to be translated in English by Arto Lindsay and Robert
Myers for publication in the United States by Alfred Knopf. Wherever one wishes to set the boundaries of the movement, Tropicália
was a turning point, a fundamental moment in the development of Brazilian
culture. Although many feel that today's artistic production has been coopted
and is tied to marketing trends, Brazilian pop music would not have progressed
as it has, were it not for Tropicalismo. The commotion caused by the Bahian
group made an indelible imprint on the artistic scene. Tropicalismo, still
germinating seeds after thirty years, remains a source of inspiration.
It was a moment of courage.
Caetano Veloso A mãe da virgem diz que não É proibido proibir Me dê um beijo, meu amor É proibido proibir "Cahi no areal na hora adversa Que importa o areal e a morte e a desventura
The virgin's mother says no It's forbidden to forbid Give me a kiss, my love It's forbidden to forbid "I fell down on the sand at the adverse hour Os Mutantes created what was considered a very daring
arrangement at that time for "É Proibido Proibir" that
included guitar distortion and electronic effects. In the studio, Caetano
read extracts in archaic Portuguese from the book Mensagem by Fernando
Pessoa (a Portuguese poet from the beginning of the century) as a counterpoint
to the refrain. The selection from the Portuguese writer appears above
in italics.
Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso Eu quis cantar
I wanted to sing
http://www.ibase.org.br/~tempoglauber/entrev.htm
http://www.caetanoveloso.com.br
As the cumulative discographies of artists aligned with Tropicália
are vast, I have supplied only selected favorites from my library. In addition,
because of the movement's abrupt life span, this discography reflects more
a continuation of the artist's individual work. Acústico BMG/RCA 1997 Mina D'água do Meu Canto BMG/RCA 1995 O Sorriso do Gato de Alice BMG/RCA 1993 Gal RCA/BMG 1992 Plural RCA/BMG 1990 Gal Costa Sigla 1988 Aquarela do Brasil Philips 1988 A Arte de Gal Costa Philips 1988 Personalidade PolyGram 1987 Lua de Mel com o Diabo RCA/BMG 1987 Fantasia Philips 1981 Gal Tropical Philips 1979 Gal Canta Caymmi Philips 1976
Quanta Mesa/Bluemoon 1997 Acoustic AtlanticJazz 1994 Parabolic Tropical Storm 1991 O Eterno Deus Mu Dança Tropical Storm 1989 Soy Loco Por Ti America BrazilOid 1988 Quilombo WEA 1984 (Sound Track) Extra Tropical Storm 1983 Relace Tropical Storm 1979 Refavela Philips 1977 Gil/Jorge Verve 1975 Refazenda Philips 1975 Louvação Philips 1967
Debaixo dos Caracóis dos Seus Cabelos Mercury 1978
Rita Lee EMI-Odeon 1980
Mutantes Polydor 1968
Tropicália 30 Anos Natasha 1997 (see below)
Livro PolyGram 1997 Tieta do Agreste Natasha 1996 (Sound Track) Circuladô Elektra Nonesuch 1991 Estrangeiro PolyGram 1989 Caetano PolyGram 1987 Caetano Veloso Nonesuch Digital 1986 Cinema Transcendental Philips 1979 Jóia Philips 1975 Araçá Azul Philips 1972 Caetano Veloso Philips 1968
Tropicália 2 Elektra Nonesuch 1993
Doces Bárbaros Philips 1976 (includes Gil's "Chuckberry Fields Forever")
Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis Philips 1968
The Hips of Tradition Luaka Bop 1992 The Best of Tom Zé Luaka Bop 1990
Fonseca, Heber. CAETANO—Esse cara. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Revan, 1993 McGowan, Chris, and Ricardo Pessanha. The Brazilian Sound. New York: Billbord Books, 1991 Perrone, Charles A. Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song: MPB 1965-1985.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989 Perrone, Charles A. Letras e Letras da MPB Rio de Janeiro: Elo Editora e Distribuidora Ltda, 1988 Veloso, Caetano. Verdade Tropical São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997
Tropicália 30 Years "Tropicália" The movement's manifesto written by Caetano Veloso; performed by Gil,
Caetano and Tom Zé. "Tropicália" appears on the
historic LP Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis. "Divino Maravilhoso" (Marvelous Divine) Written by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso; performed by Gal Costa.
"Alegria, Alegria" (Joy, Joy) Written by Caetano; performed by Daniela Mercury. "Domingo no Parque" (Sunday at the Park) Written by Gilberto Gil; performed by Margareth Menezes. "Batmacumba" Written by Caetano Veloso and Gil; performed by Ilê Ayê.
"Batmacumba" appears on the historic LP Tropicália
ou Panis et Circensis. "Os Mais Doces Bárbaros" (Sweetest Barbarians) Written by Caetano Veloso; performed by Carlinhos Brown. "Soy Loco Por Ti America" (I'm Crazy for you America) Written by Gil and Capinam; performed by Ara Ketu "Não Identificado" (Unidentified) Written by Caetano Veloso; performed by Ivete Sangalo and Banda Eva.
"Procissão" (Procession) Written by Gil; performed by Didá Banda Feminina. "Superbacana" (Supercool) Written by Caetano Veloso; performed by Ásia de Águia.
"Geléia Geral" (General Jam) Written by Gilberto Gil and Torquato Neto; performed by Banda Cheiro
de Amor. "Geléia Geral" appears on the historic LP Tropicália
ou Panis et Circensis. "Atrás do Trio Elétrico" (Behind the Electric
Trio) Written by Caetano Veloso; performed by Moraes Moreira. "Hino ao Senhor do Bonfim" (Hymn for Jesus Christ) Written by João Antônio Wanderley; performed by Lazzo e
Virgínia Rodrigues. "Hino ao Senhor do Bonfim" appears on the historic LP Tropicália
ou Panis et Circensis.
1. Geléia Geral literally translates as general jam, but figuratively
it means everything combined. 2. Physicist César Lattes is also mentioned in Gil's song "Ciência
e Arte" (Science and Art) on the Quanta CD. Lattes is probably
still the most famous Brazilian physicist and certainly at one time a brilliant
scientist, but he also is something of an embarrassment to the younger
generation of Brazilian physicists. Lattes made his great discovery (of
the pion) in 1947 at the age of twenty-three. Unfortunately, one problem
with making a great discovery very young is that there is pressure to try
to match or exceed this early work. In the early 1950s Cesare Mansuetto
Giulio Lattes announced that he had found a mistake in Einstein's theory
of special relativity and added fuel to the fire by making childish and
derogatory remarks about Albert Einstein (still alive at the time). The
actual remark was something like, "Einstein aimed high, but he couldn't
piss straight." Moreover, it was César Lattes who made the
elementary mistake, and from that time forward Lattes became more isolated
from mainstream physics as well as becoming more of a social recluse. On
Quanta, César Lattes tells Gil that he doesn't believe in
the existence of quarks even though the evidence for quarks became overwhelming
about 20 years ago. Those of you who have read Surely You're Joking
Mr. Feynman might remember César Lattes as the Director of Physical
Research in Rio who greeted Feynman at the airport by asking if he had
a woman to sleep with that night and who told Feynman to teach when it
was convenient for him and ignore what the students want. * This information about Lattes comes secondhand from an astrophysicist
friend. Thanks, Wayne. Bruce Gilman, music editor for Brazzil, received
his Masters degree in music from California Institute of the Arts. He leads
the Brazilian jazz ensemble Axé and plays cuíca for
escola de samba MILA. You can reach him through his
E-mail: cuica@interworld.net Times of Gall
It all started in 1967. But for all the hoopla around
the 30th anniversary of Tropicalismo it looks more like a centennial.
Special stories have appeared on TV, newspapers and magazines. Gilberto
Gil and Caetano Veloso, two of the leaders of the movement, have just released
new CDs. Is it all just repeated hype and overkilling by a culture suffering
from an inferiority complex? Brazzil tries to answer this and many
other questions.
Bruce Gilman
Caetano Veloso
And the tropical morn begins to beat
Resplendent, cascading, gracious
A joyous sunflower heat
In the general jam of Brazil
That the Jornal do Brasil will greet
Without handkerchief, without documents
In the almost December sun, I go
The sun scatters into spaceships, guerrillas
...teeth, legs, flags, the bomb, and Brigitte Bardot.
Hypothesis
Survivors
É Proibido
Proibir
E o anúncio da televisão
Estava escrito no portão
E o maestro ergueu o dedo
E além da porta há o porteiro, sim
E eu digo não
E eu digo não ao não
E eu digo é é proibido proibir
É proibido proibir
É proibido proibir
É proibido proibir
Eles estão nos esperando
Os automóveis ardem em chamas
Derrubar as prateleiras
As estantes, as estátuas
As vidraças, louças, livros, sim
E eu digo sim
E eu digo não
E eu digo é proibido proibir
É proibido proibir
É proibido proibir
É proibido proibir
Que Deus concede aos seus
Para o intervallo em que esteja a alma immersa
Em sonhos que são Deus
Se com Deus me guardei?
O que eu me sonhei que eterno dura,
Esse que regressarei."
It's Forbidden
to Forbid
And the add on television
Was written on the gate
And the conductor raised his finger
And beside the door, there is a doorman, yes
And I say no
And I say no to no
And I say it's forbidden to forbid
It's forbidden to forbid
It's forbidden to forbid
It's forbidden to forbid
They are waiting for us
The cars are burning in flames
Let's demolish the shelves
The bookcases, the statues
The windows, the china, the books, yes
And I say yes
And I say no
And I say it's forbidden to forbid
It's forbidden to forbid
It's forbidden to forbid
It's forbidden to forbid
That God concedes to His
To have the intermission in which the soul is immersed
In dreams of God
Who cares about the sand and death and misfortune
If I kept myself with God
What I dreamed lasts eternally
That I will return"
Panis et Circensis
Minha canção iluminada de sol
Soltei os panos sobre os mastros no ar
Soltei os tigres e os leões nos quintais
Mas as pessoas da sala de jantar
São preocupadas em nascer e morrer
Mandei fazer de puro aço luminoso um punhal
Para matar o meu amor e matei
Às sete horas na avenida central
Mas as pessoas da sala de jantar
São preocupadas em nascer e morrer
Mandei plantar folhas de sonho no jardim do solar
As folhas sabem procurar pelo sol
E as raízes procurar, procurar
Mas as pessoas na sala de jantar
Essas pessoas na sala de jantar
São as pessoas da sala de jantar
Mas as pessoas na sala de jantar
São preocupadas em nascer e morrer
Essas pessoas na sala de jantar
Essas pessoas na sala de jantar
Essas pessoas na sala de jantar
Essas pessoas…
Bread and Diversion
My song illuminated by the sun
I released the sails on the mast in the air
I released the lions and tigers in the backyards
But people in the dining room
Are worried about birth and death
I had a dagger made of pure, luminous steel
To kill my love, and I killed it
At seven o'clock on Central Avenue
But people in the dining room
Are worried about birth and death
I planted leaves of dreams in the garden of my manor
The leaves know how to look for the sun
And the roots look for, look for
But people in the dining room
Those people in the dining room
Are the people in the dining room
But people in the dining room
Are worried about birth and death
Those people in the dining room
Those people in the dining room
Those people . . .
Web sites:
Selected
Discography: Gal Costa
Gil
Nara Leão
Rita Lee
Os Mutantes
Various
Caetano
Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil
Caetano, Gil,
Gal Costa,
Maria Bethânia
Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé,
Gal Costa, Rita Lee,
Os Mutantes, Nara Leão
Tom Zé
Selected Bibliography
Natasha Records 1997
(track by track)
