Tag Archives: elis regina

Elis Regina: We are still the same as before..

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Como os nossos pais [Elis Regina]

Não quero lhe falar, meu grande amor
Das coisas que aprendi nos discos
Quero lhe contar como eu vivi e tudo o que aconteceu comigo

Viver é melhor que sonhar
E eu sei que o amor é uma coisa boa
Mas também sei que qualquer canto é menor do que a vida de qualquer pessoa

Por isso cuidado, meu bem, há perigo na esquina
Eles venceram e o sinal está fechado pra nós que somos jovens
Para abraçar seu irmão e beijar sua menina na rua
É que se fez o seu braço, o seu lábio e a sua voz

Você me pergunta pela minha paixão
Digo que estou encantado como uma nova invenção
Eu vou ficar nesta cidade, não vou voltar pro sertão
Pois vejo vir vindo no vento o cheiro da nova nova estação
Eu sei de tudo na ferida viva do meu coração

Já faz tempo eu vi você na rua cabelo ao vento gente jovem reunida
Na parede da memória essa lembrança é o quadro que dói mais
Minha dor é perceber que apesar de termos feito tudo que fizemos
Ainda somos os mesmos e vivemos
Como nossos pais

Nossos ídolos ainda são os mesmos e as aparências não se enganam, não
Você diz que depois deles não apareceu mais ninguém
Você pode até dizer que tou por fora ou então que tou inventando
Mas é você que ama o passado é que não vê
É você que ama o passado é que não vê
Que o novo sempre vem

Hoje eu sei que quem deu me deu a idéia de uma nova consciência e juventude
Está em casa guardado por Deus contando vil metal
Minha dor é perceber que apesar de termos feito tudo tudo o que fizemos
Nós ainda somos os mesmos e vivemos
Ainda somos os mesmos e vivemos
Como os nossos pais

English
As lived our parents

I don’t want to talk, my greatest love,
About things that I’ve learned from my vinyls
I want to tell you how my life was like
And about all that betided me

To live is better than dreaming .
I know that love is a pretty good thing
But I also know that any place is smaller than anyone’s life

For this reason, watch out, darling,
The danger is waiting around the corner
They won and the way is now barred to us, the youngs.
To embrace your brother and kiss your girl in the street
is what your arms, your lips and your voice are made for

You ask me what’s my new passion
I say I’m wondered at all this, it feels like a new invention
I’m going to stay at this city, I’m not coming back to the backwoods
Because I sense the smell of the new season hovering in the wind
I can learn anything through this wound, that lives within my heart

It’s been a while since I saw you in a street
With the wind blowing in your hair,
Along young people, all joined together.
Hanging up on my mind’s wall,
The memory of this is the frame that hurts me most
My pain is to realize that despite all we have done
We are still the same as before and live…
We are still the same and live as lived our parents
Our idols are still the same
And the appearances don’t disguise it at all
You say that after them, no new idols have ever existed
You may even say that I’m out-of-date, that I made up all this
But it’s you the one who loves the past and can’t see that
new times will always come

Now I’ve learned that the man who taught me of a new conscience and youth
is now sitting at home, guarded by Lord, counting coins of vain money
My pain is to realize that despite all we’ve done
We are still the same as before and live…
We are still the same and live as lived our parents
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Elis Regina Sings “O Bebado e a Equilibrista”

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Brazilian pop singer Elis Regina (1945 – 1982) is one of my new finds. One half of an album Elis and Tom (with Antonio Carlos Jobim) that’s considered one of the best in bossa nova, Regina was a passionate, supremely gifted, and original performer. Not as overtly political as other singers, her own unconventional life and stage presence lent weight to her political engagement. She was once vilified for a public performance in support of Brazil’s military junta (1964-1985) that later turned out to have been coerced. After that, the cartoonist Helfil, one of her detractors, became her friend, and she joined him to support a popular movement demanding the amnesty of political prisoners and exiled artists and intellectuals.

This was the subject of her classic 1979 performance of “O Bêbado e a Equilibrista” (Blanc/Bosco), which refers to “the return of Henfil’s brother.” This was the cartoonist’s older brother, Betinho, a leading sociologist, who had been exiled. Regina’s campaign was an important contribution to some 5000 Brazilian political prisoners returning from exile.

O Bebado e a Equilibrista
The Drunk and the Tightrope Walker (1979)

Lyrics: Carla Cristina
Music: Aldir Blanc/João Bosco
Translation: Steven Engler

Evening fell like a bridge
A drunk in a funeral suit reminded me of Chaplin’s tramp
The moon, like some brothel madam
Begged a rented shine from each cold star
And clouds, up there in the blotting paper sky
Sucked at tortured stains
What insane pressure
The drunk with the bowler hat made a thousand bows
For Brazil, my Brazil’s night
Is dreaming of the return of Henfil’s brother
Of so many people who left, in a dangerous situation
Our country is crying, gentle mother
Marias and Clarices are crying on Brazilian soil
But I know that pain this sharp can’t be pointless
Hope dances on the tightrope with an umbrella
With each step on that rope you can hurt yourself
Bad luck, the balancing hope
Knows that each artist’s show must go on