Estranged as I've always been from my homeland, I must confess that I have a difficult relationship with the 'national' song (or with anything 'national', for that matter), the Fado.
Yet, Amélia Muge's music, and in particular her reinventions of Fado, defy any categories, genres, styles, traditions, and passionately combine her love of poetry in the Portuguese language with a boundless musical imagination that travels along the most unexpected and unconventional routes, all over the world, from Portugal to Africa and Brazil - and beyond.
Tempestuous, frank, fiery, fierce, Muge is not for the faint-hearted and the indifferent. As she puts it in the dedication in her wonderful album A Monte (2002), she sings for 'the friends and dear enemies. Let the indifferent go in peace. This kingdom is not theirs'.
Were I to single out a song that has stayed with me over the years, it would be this O Fado da Sereia / The Mermaid's Fado, which I leave here with no further explanation - the music and the poetry speak for themselves.
Oh, and I've taken the liberty of adding a (very) rough translation of Hélia Correia's stunning poem below, with implicit dedication.
O Fado da Sereia / The Mermaid's Fado (click to listen)
Lyrics: Hélia Correia
Vocals, Music: Amélia Muge
Piano arrangement: Jorge Palma
Serei, serei a sereia
a do pescoço doirado
que no fio da sua voz
te arrastava para o largo?
Serei, serei a donzela
que em teu desejo aparecia
sempre que à noite acordavas
contra uma cama vazia?
Ai, ai, marujo, mareante
porque te foste encerrar
num barco à prova de encanto
num barco à prova de mar?
Já das rotas me apagaste
E já o teu olhar não vê
minha garganta nas rendas
que me vestia a maré
Quem me tivera avisado
que o amor de um marinheiro
é como os vícios do mar
é como o mar traiçoeiro
Que me deixavas trocada
por mulheres que a terra dá
mulheres de pernas cobertas
por balões de tafetá
Ai tem, cautela, marinheiro
que o mar é coisa ruim
e o amor de uma sereia
não vai acabar-se assim
Que hás-de vir de novo à rede
de um amor que engana e mata
que, à vista deste, outro amor
é cinza à vista da prata
Ai quem me dera que em vez
de filha do mar, me achasse
rapariguinha solteira
que nesse mar se afogasse
Ai quem me dera que em vez
de cantadeira do mar
fosse eu mulher de viela
para ainda me ouvires cantar.
* * *
Am I, am I the mermaid
the one with the golden neck
who would in the thread of her voice
lure you into the open sea?
Am I, am I the maiden
who would in your desire appear
whenever you woke up at night
against an empty bed?
O sailor, seafarer
why have you shut yourself off
in a spell-proof boat
in a sea-proof boat?
You have already erased me from the sea routes
And your gaze no longer sees
my throat in the lace
in which the tide clad me
Had someone warned me
that a sailor’s love
is like the vices of the sea
it is like the treacherous sea
and that you would leave me
for women who the land offers
women with their legs covered
in taffeta balloons
O sailor, beware
the sea is an evil thing
and a mermaid’s love
won’t just end like this
You will be netted again
by a love that deceives and kills
another love that, in comparison to this one,
is as ash to silver
O I wish that instead
of daughter of the sea I were
a little maiden
who drowned in that sea
O I wish that instead of
songstress of the sea
I were a woman of the streets
so that you could still hear me sing.
[Translated from the Portuguese by DK.]
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