Red Hot and Rio: Caetano's Unusual Song "Terra" (=Earth)
On the new Red Hot and Rio 2 double cd compilation, there is a version of Caetano Veloso’s 1969 song “Terra” (“earth”). When reviewing his autobiography (Verdade Tropical / Tropical…
By Tom Schnabel • • 3 min readOn the new Red Hot and Rio 2double cd compilation, there is a version of Caetano Veloso’s 1969 song “Terra” (“earth”). When reviewing his autobiography (Verdade Tropical / Tropical Truth) a few years ago for the LA Times Book Review, I read about how he wrote this song while in a Rio prison cell. He had been arrested for insulting army personnel at a concert.
While in jail, Veloso saw the stunning photos of earth taken by the first astronauts from the moon, something never witnessed throughout the annals of time and our dreams of space travel. The earth in these photos is a pricelessly beautiful orb.
Caetano’s lyrics form a paean on the earth’s beauty as seen from space. That Veloso wrote them from a dark sweltering prison cell truly makes this song a masterpiece of irony.
Singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso was a Brazilian hippie-surrealist-intellectual-provacateur-anarchist who already had a huge following among youth culture by the late 1960’s. Along with Gilberto Gil (now Brazil’s Minister of Culture), Tom Zé, and Rita Lee, Caetano was part of the tropicalia movement which criticized the bossa nova movement as being elitist, apolitical and superficial, about beaches and and ignoring the harsh rule of Brazil’s dictatorship, one that was to last over two decades. The generals, like the police in Paris in May 68 (an event that influenced Veloso and other political activists in Brazil) or the police here in the U.S. with anti-war protesters, were not fond of young agitators. Caetano and Gil were later exiled, first to Portugal and then to London. Gil and Caetano preferred London to Lisbon, because London in the late 60s was where the action was. Lisbon was provincial by comparison.
I’m glad the compilers of the new, second volume of Red, Hot and Rio included this unusual song. It deserves better recognition.
Given yesterday (4/22) was Earth Day, I reposted this and got this short film Caetano Veloso made about the song. In it you see his parents, who are the spitting images of him and his sister, Maria Bethania
Finally, here is a link to the lyrics, both in original Portuguese and English translation:
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/terra-earth.html-0
Quando eu me encontrava preso, na cela de uma cadeia
Foi que eu vi pela primeira vez, as tais fotografias
Em que apareces inteira, porém lá não estava nua
E sim coberta de nuvens
Terra,terra,
Por mais distante o errante navegante
Quem jamais te esqueceria
Ninguém supõe a morena, dentro da estrela azulada
Na vertigem do cinema, mando um abraço pra ti
Pequenina como se eu fosse o saudoso poeta
E fosses a Paraíba
Terra,terra,
Por mais distânte o errante navegante
Quem jamais te esqueceria
Eu estou apaixonado, por uma menina terra
Signo de elemneto terra, do mar se diz terra à vista
Terra para o pé firmeza, terra para a mão carícia
Outros astros lhe são guia
Terra,terra,
Por mais distânte o errante navegante
Quem jamais te esqueceria
Eu sou um leão de fogo, sem ti me consumiria
A mim mesmo eternamente,e de nada valeria
Acontecer de eu ser gente e gente é outra alegria
Diferente das estrelas
Terra,terra,
Por mais distânte o errante navegante
Quem jamais te esqueceria
De onde nem tempo e nem espaço, que a força te de coragem
Pra gente te dar carinho, durante toda a viagem
Que realizas do nada,através do qual carregas
O nome da tua carne
Terra,terra,
Por mais distânte o errante navegante
Quem jamais te esqueceria
Na sacadas do sobrado, da eterna são salvador
Há lembranças de donzelas, do tempo do Imperador
Tudo, tudo na Bahia faz a gente querer bem
A Bahia tem um jeito
Terra,terra,
Por mais distante o errante navegante
Quem jamais te esqueceria
Earth
When I found myself arrested
In a prison cell
That’s when I first saw
Those famous pictures
In which you appear entire
However you were not naked
But covered by clouds…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
Nobody supposes the brunette
Inside the bluish star
In the vertigo of the movie
I send you an embrace,
Little one – as if I were
The homesick poet
And you were the Paraíba*…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
I’m just in love
With an earth girl
Earth element sign
From the sea is said “earth in sight”
Earth to the foot solidity
Earth to the hand caress
Other stars** for you are guides…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
I am a lion of fire
Without you I’d burn up
I’d burn up myself eternally
And it would be worthless
The fact of my being people
And people is another joy
Different than stars’s…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
From where neither time nor space
May the Force send courage
For us to treat you tenderly
During all the journey
That you carry out in the nothing
Through which you bear
The name of your flesh…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
In the townhouses’s terraces
Of the old city of Salvador
There are remembrances of damsels
From the time of the Emperor
Everything, everything in Bahia
Makes us to be fond of
Bahia*** has such a way…
Earth! Earth!
However distant
The wandering navigator
Who could ever forget you?…
Earth!
*Paraíba – One of the states of Brazil.
**Astros (Celestial bodies) translated as “Stars”.
***Bahia – One of the states of Brazil. The city of Salvador is the capital of Bahia.
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