Asides

Television | Brasil, Brasil

By John Turnbull ⋅ 20 November 2007
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An ongoing BBC Four series, Brasil, Brasil, tracks the evolution of Brazilian music, from samba to forró to bossa nova to tropicalia to AfroReggae. Almost all of these traditions intersect with football: samba is the celebration dance, “a body unselfconsciously flowing in response to a syncopated beat, melding curious indolence and sexual charge, form and spontaneity,” writes Rowan Ireland in the current dance-themed issue of ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America (fall 07).

Poet-musician Chico Buarque has composed football songs, such as “O Futebol” (“Para estufar esse filó / Como eu sonhei / Só / Se eu fosse o Rei,” or “To hit the net / As I dreamed / Only / If I were Pelé the King,” in Alex Bellos’s translation), and tropicalia innovator Caetano Veloso has recorded the anthem “Hino da Bahia” for his home team in Salvador, especially appropriate this week. Both tracks are available on the CD Música de Futebol (Mr Bongo, 2004).

Tags: afroreggae, Alex Bellos, bossa nova, caetano veloso, chico buarque, football, forró, samba, soccer, tropicalia