Translation time! This one of from Cara de Espelho, the new band I mentioned in yesterday’s post about Perdo da Silva Martins. This is one of the singles from the album, or would be if singles were still a thing. It’s a track that got released early. I have to hold my hands up, I totally misunderstood the title, but if you follow the footnotes you’ll see how I gradually came to understand what they meant by Corridinho.
I also wasn’t sure at first what they were saying about “separating” all these different types of people. If you just read the first verse it sounds like he’s complaining about there being too many immigrants or tourists in the country. Of course, that doesn’t tend to be the way Pedro de Silva Martins thinks: his work with Deolinda gave the impression that he was fairly left wing and had quite an open attitude to other people, so it would be surprising if he was now backing CHEGA, but who knows, we all get more right wing as we get older. And of course he’s entitled to his point of view. By the end though, it seems pretty clear that he’s saying “there’s more that unites us than divides us”, which I think is probably a healthier way to look at life, and certainly more fun.
| Português | Inglês |
|---|---|
| Separando o africano do cigano Do chinês, do indiano, ucraniano, muçulmano, do romeno ou tirolês Como vês Sobra muito, muito pouco português, ó pá | Separating the african from the gypsy From the chinese, the indian, ucranian, muslim, from the romanian or tirolean As you see There’s very, very little portuguese left, oh man! |
| Separando o cristão do taoista, do judeu do islamita, do ateu ou do budista, do baptista mirandês Como vês Sobra muito, muito pouco português, ó pá | Separating the christian from the taoist, from the jew, from the islamist, from the atheist or from the buddhist, from the mirandese baptist As you see There’s very, very little portuguese left, oh man! |
| E que tal juntar a malta numa boa* A um corridinho** de Lisboa Volta e meia*** e roda o par**** Triste é quem fica a ver dançar | And how about we get all the cool people together For a Lisbon corridinho From time to time and spin the pair Anyone who just watches the dance is sad |
| Separando o celta do visigodo, O huno do ostrogodo, o romano do suevo, ou o mouro do gaulês Como vês Sobra muito, muito pouco português, ó pá | Separating the celt from the visigoth, The hun from the ostrogoth, the roman from the suebian, or the moor from the gaul As you see There’s very, very little portuguese left, oh man! |
| Se tu queres ainda separar o gay, Da lésbica, do straight, da mulher, gente de bem, Ou de quem sofre de gaguez Como vês Sobra muito, muito pouco português, ó pá | If you stull want to separate the gay, From the lesbian, from the straight, from the woman, good people, Or from people who stutter As you see There’s very, very little portuguese left, oh man! |
| E que tal juntar a malta numa boa A um corridinho***** de Lisboa Volta e meia e roda o par Triste é quem fica a ver dançar | And how about we get all the cool people together For a Lisbon corridinho From time to time and spin the pair Anyone who just watches the dance is sad |
| Ora tenta separar o teu genoma, tu tens tanto de Lisboa como de Rabat ou Doha, tudo soma no que és Como vês Sobra muito, muito pouco português, ó pá Se ainda te faz muita confusão | Well try and separate your genome, You have as much of Lisbon as of Rabat or Doha, It all adds up to who you are As you see, There’s very, very little portuguese left, oh man! |
| Vai, separa o fótão do protão, do electrão Até desvaneceres de vez Como vês Sobra muito, muito pouco português, ó pá | If it still really confuses you Go, separate the photon from the proton, from the electron Until you disappear for good As you see There’s very, very little portuguese left, oh man! |
| E que tal juntar a malta numa boa A um corridinho de Lisboa volta e meia e roda o par Pois… | And how about we get all the cool people together For a Lisbon corridinho From time to time and spin the pair Sure… |
* Numa boa seems to be an expression like “na boa” and “de boa” – basically, cool. OK, I hadn’t heard of that
**OK, I’ll put my hand up, I thought corridinho was related to corrida and that they were talking about some sort of group run. LOL. No, running is quite popular in portugal but in a song about bringing everyone together, a group run would be a bit of a weird way to do it.
***Volta e meia is another expression, meaning once in a while
****It took me a while to work this one out. Roda o par….? Wheel the pair? A pair of wheels? Are they going on a bike ride? What? It doesn’t even flow into the next line. Then I realised, obviously, roda is a verb, so it means “spin” or “rotate”. Rotating the pair: it’s a dance move, I think. I can only really find it in descriptions of brazilian dances like the chupim (part way down this page for example), but there aren’t that many written descriptions of dances so the fact that I couldn’t find an example from portugal doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
*****And so we come full circle: Corridinho is a kind of dance popular in the Algarve. The Wikipedia entry for it doesn’t include the phrase “roda(r) a par”, but both words appear individually multiple times. You can see examples on youtube like this one – which has some excellent saia rodada action.
Luso 