It’s been a busy year in the Saudade mines and Portugal now has such a vast surplus of their untranslatable major export that they’ve taken to giving double portions away with every Eurovision entry. “Saudade, Saudade” is a good song. It’s a strange choice for a Eurovision entry, but that’s not a huge surprise: they’ve been sending strange choices to Eurovision for some time now and it keeps things interesting! I actually really struggled to listen to it on yesterday’s Eurovision final, because I was trying to tune in to the Portuguese lyrics but it wasn’t till the second listen that I realised it’s almost all in English! In my defence, there was a lot of background noise!
The only Portuguese verse (not counting the word “Saudade” itself of course) is
Tem tanto que trago comigo
Foi sempre o meu porto de abrigo
E agora nada faz sentido
Perdi o meu melhor amigo
E se não for demais
Peço por sinais
Resta uma só palavra
Which translates as
He has so much I carry inside myself
He was always my port in the storm
And now nothing makes sense
I lost my best friend
And if its not too much,
I ask for a sign
Only one word remains
By the way, we set out to get a range of snacks from lots of European nations to eat while watching but we ended up just loading up on cakes from the Portuguese stall at Richmond’s Duckpond Market
Luso 