My wife is binge-watching different versions of this fado classic. I’ve heard quite a lot before, but this guy is really smashing it. Easily the best I’ve heard
I’ll translate it for anyone who happens across this and doesnt understand the lyrics. Fado is the national music of Portugal, obvs, so I won’t translate that most of the time, but it also means “fate” or “destiny” and it sometimes makes sense to translate it that way.
Madness
I’m from fado! I know it!
I live in a sung poem of a destiny that I made.
I can’t set express myself by talking,
But I set my soul singing, and souls know how to hear me.
Cry, cry, poets of my country,
Stems from the same root, of the life that united us.
And if you weren’t at my side then there would be no fado,
Nor fado singers like me.
This voice, so sorrowful, is because of you,
Poets of my life.
It’s madness! I hear, but blessed be this madness, to sing and to suffer
Cry, cry, poets of my country,
Stems from the same root, of the life that united us.
And if you weren’t at my side then there would be no fado,
Nor fado singers like me.
Hoje, fui até ao Barbican Centre para ver um concerto de música lusófona de Portugal e do Brasil. A fadista Carminho está quase ao fim dum série de concertos nos quais ela canta as obras de Tom Jobim. Lamento que não tenho um grande conhecimento de musica brasileira, mas conheço o nome de Jobim, e dois membros da banda tinham o mesmo nome porque são os netos dele (ou.. Um neto e um filho…? Não sei…) além duma baterista e do violoncelista Jaques Morelenbaum.
Também cantou dois fados dedicados ao Jobim e um outro escrito por uma poeta brasileiro, Vinicius de Moraes.
Luso 