Brilliant socio-political commentary! Chico Buarque - Construção | REACTION
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- Опубликовано: 3 июн 2024
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One thing you (and some Brazilian people as well) don't notice is the criticism of the censorship in this music. It was written during our military dictatorship, which censored all songs, news, movies, etc. By writing the same story three times, but only changing the last word in each verse (in Portuguese, bc the English translation sadly cannot get this right), you change how the story is told. In the first, it's the unaltered news: a guy with a loving wife worked hard, ate his lunch and fell. In the second time, a guy who cheated on his wife came to work drunk, ate his lunch "like a prince" and, being drunk, fell, messing with the public. The second version looks like the version of the building company, who only blame the victim who fell from their building. The third version, to me, looks like a police report of what happened. Shorter, looks like it was written by someone who don't really care about the situation. And it messes the saturday, because all the paperwork the police have to fill (usually workers don't work on saturday).
Musica escrita por um cara tão bonzinho, que nesta época Chico Buarque era ladrão de carro conte direito a história não seja um canalha petista, Chico foi um gênio como artista mas um escroto como pessoa.
Eu já interpreto como sendo três homens diferentes que têm um destino trágico devido às condições da época e que não importa o quão bom você seja ou não, todos estão sujeitos ao descaso. Tanto o dito cidadão de bem, quanto o ordinário morreram em decorrência daquele movimento industrial que não se importava com o social.
Excellent analysis!!!
@@FabioOliveira-my4np eu também tive a mesma interpretação, vidas negligenciadas pelo sistema com o mesmo final trágico que só serviu pra "atrapalhar" o cotidiano, só mais um
Seu ponto de vista estabelece a possibilidade de um diálogo artístico com a peça "o Boca-de-ouro" de Nelson Rodrigues, que conta o mesmo fato sob três pontos de vista diferentes, a depender do momento.
Abriu uma chave pra pensar... AGRADECIDO.
Everyone here in Brazil remembered this song and the verse "he died in the wrong lane messing up the traffic" when, four years ago, a man died inside a supermarket where he worked in, the managers covered his body with beach umbrellas and people continued working as If nothing had happened.
Chico is a pure genius.
Yes! I always remember this when I hear this song.
Carrefour
cara, é sempre bizarro ver o quão atual o passado é.
@@PukeBox bizarro é saber q isso foi no meu bairro
@@renan929 empresa francesa.
"Comeu feijao com arroz como se fosse um principe" como um estrangeiro vai entender o tamanho disso?!
Como explicar proparoxitona pra uma pessoa que a lingua mae é inglês?
Como não ser babaca num comentário de youtube? Taí mais uma questão pra você.
@@anapaulafernandes7732 proparoxítonas também existem no inglês ué
@@calebsousa2754 sim mas o portugues usa as silabas de uma forma diferente, vou dar um exemplo "meu caro patrão" do Chicho Buarque (pros saltimbancos) ele usa os recursos de tonicas e silabas pra brincar com o tema da música e de q ela foi feita numa maquina de escrever (por algm q provavelmente n sabia escrever """formalmente""" o portugues), entao ele inverte as tonicas pra usa-las como recurso de rimas com outras palavras que elas nao rimariam se fossem da mesma forma que escritas tecnicamente.
@@Urimagnetlinkmeu mano, aí tu eleva a parada a um patamar que eu não tenho ideia de como chegar, vlw pelo desafio 😅
Genius. Right after saying "He died in the wrong lane missing up the traffic" the orchestra explodes with horns, trumpets, trombones etc. as if the car horns were complaining not about the worker's death but rather because this death disrupted traffic.
Not to mention the symmetry of the verses, the use of proparoxytones at the end of these verses, proparoxytones that, when interchanged, alter the meaning of these verses in a dramatic crescendo...
“He died in the wrong lane” can also be interpreted as on the other side of the political spectrum. If you’re not in the “right” side, you’ll be ran over, simply. You’re either in or out!
Today (19/jun/'24) Birthday's Chico Buarque! 80 years young!🎉🇧🇷🌹❤️🇧🇷🌹🍻🚩🎶🎵❤️🌻
This music is about all of us. All of us, specially the working class.
✊️
De a ordem camara Francisco ✊🏽
This song is about the simple man, with a hard life, who undergoes dangerous work that pays poorly. This explains why he drinks at work. But the most admirable fact about this song is Chico's poetic skill where, in the Portuguese language, all the sentences end in proparoxytone words, such as: sábado(saturday), bêbado(drunk), tráfego(traffic), príncipe(prince), náufrago(castaway), etc."
Errado. Ele não bebe no trabalho. " Como se fosse um bêbado" ou seja, ele não era um bêbado, mas os outros o julgaram como um bêbado irresponsável que caiu do prédio no meio do caminho.
Chico is incredible and you are right about being a political song Brazil in the 70s was going through a military dictatorship so any direct criticism of the government would lead to censorship so artists like Chico made criticism in a subtle way as to not get censored. I would strongly recommend you listen to Chico Buarque song Apesar de você it's one of my favorite songs and if you pay attention to the lyrics you can clearly see the criticism against the dictatorship in a indirect way. Would love to see you reacting to this song.
Chico é um gênio da nossa música.
Brazilian music is extremely underrated. If Dylan won a Nobel Prize for literature, Chico deserved to win 10
Chico Buarque is a genius. I will never forget how I found out about his songs in History class. My teacher made us copy the lyrics from "Cálice", after we finished and asked why she was teaching that song to us, she started to breaking down the lyrics to us, because of the period that Brazil was going through, the military dictatorship (1964 - 1985), every piece of media need to be analyzed, and lots of things were censored, so Chico Buarque and many other artists found ways to sneak their criticism of the dictatorship to still be able to have their songs played at the radio, in a hope to open more people's eyes from what was going on at the time. I absolutely love Chico Buarque, but I don't listen to his song very often because they are so good that I'm scared of getting tired to listen to them, that's how good they are.
True. And, still, he manages to be quite clear, albeit in a poetic way. The final part is open criticism of the dictatorship and the last sentence "e pela paz derradeira que enfim vai nos redimir" (for the final peace that will finally redeem us) is a direct reference to the regime, which was called by some of its supporters back then "a revolução redentora" (the redemptive revolution), that would bring order and social peace (by destroying the "enemies of the nation" - i.e. the left opposition). Only a censorship agent living in those times who wasn't paying attention, or who couldn't think with enough nuance to get such references, would miss this. And in fact, they did.
Chico Buarque is one of the greatest intellectuals of our generation and his songs are full of subliminal messages that require a certain intelligence.
An interest thing is that when the first part of the song repeat the second time, he repeats the same lyrics swapping just the last word with words of the next verse (in the translation probably the penultimate, because of different syntax). It causes the sensation of confusion of the worker and even the sensation of days repeating exhaustingly whith you loosing your sense of yhe things
So… Buarque composed this as an opera. The meaning of the word opera is “construction/work.” So…the style of the song quite literally matches the theme of the lyrics … and as the guy builds the construction, Buarque builds the song by changing the order of the words at the end of every verse.
It's about the horrible situations hard physical workers have to live through. The fatal accidents they suffer, alcohol addiction, bad familiar relationships, etc. And how they still try to love life despite these conditions imposed by the ruling class (may god pay them back).
It's also about that
You've just reacted to the best lyricist the world has ever kwown: incredibly deep, ironically sharp, but sweet at the same time, sagacious, and profoundly poetic. I don't like throwing around the word "genius", but he is definetly one. "Construção" is the kind of song you can call perfect in all aspects. But Chico has got about 30 songs you could call perfect. He is in a league of his own
???????
Como fã de Chico, envergonho-me do desnecessário ufanismo.
@@pedrojosedasilva2146 Então descarte a palavra "fã ". É cafona e ufanista. Algo que eu jamais usaria. Eu apenas dei a dimensão da grandeza da obra
Chico Buarque is the greatest alive poet in Brazilian culture.
I love Bob Dylan, and for me, as a lyricist, Chico Buarque is "our" Dylan - and even a richer musician. Pure genius.
No. Our Dylan is Belchior.
Chico Buarque de Hollanda is one the most influencial brazilian song-writer in all times. Chico has a many popular success songs over de decades since the 1960's. Tom Jobim have a greatest love and admiration for Chico and his lyrics: "Chico is a single and rare person: he's has the know-how of the portuguese language", say's Jobim. Chico Buarque, is known one the major artist critical of the brazilian Military Dictatorialship (1964-1985). And at the time when Brazil turns to a democracy, Chico have been identify the left-wing politics. His father, the academic researcher in history, Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda, is one the founders of the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, the PT). Until today, Chico, is one the famous person symbols and synonimous of "being left-wing" in Brazil. He is a great friend of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But the songs, the work, of Chico Buarque are one the most important piece of brazilian cultural landscape.
Uma obra-prima de Chico Buarque. Não é só uma música, é uma construção poética e reflexiva profunda e bela.
Comentário resumido e maravilhoso. Parabéns
This music is a fuking masterpiece. Unfortunately "translation is treason" and some aspects of the music can only be noticed in the original version, for me one of the most brilliant of those is how chico ends every verse.
Not only he changes the verses last words but all of them have the stress on the 3th syllable prior to the end of the word, that is extremely difficult to do in Portuguese as words like this are considered the rarest type of word in the language. It was completely intentional as the stress in this place makes a "fall down" sound (to the words an in this case for every verse), helping with the general theme of the lyrics.
Historical aspects have a huge factor in this song as well, but as far as i can see loads have already talked about them, and i have no intention of repeating them all ...
Chico Buarque's work is powerful, I love it. Any song of his is a poem. Excellent composer. Thanks for bringing it.
As pessoas zombam de mim, mas eu amo tudo que ele compôs,
What a masterpiece this is. Agreed. 😢
I'm glad that you've gotten to know this hero of us.
Chico's music has been a lighthouse in the night.
His blending of the trivial with the transcendent is like a perfect puzzle coming together in a clear picture.
Check up Milton Nascimento's
"Que sera"
Not a political statement per-se but an immensely humanistic redemption.
There are gigants in the music of south america waiting to be seen. Thanks for the curiosity.
As letras do Chico são letras dificeis, cheias de referencias ao período em que foram escritas, a coisas que só os brasileiros conseguem entender, fatos relacionados aos nossos costumes, história, muita ironia e critica aos desníveis sociais preconceitos, a ditadura militar, a repressão, as situações de apatia, desconsideração com a vida alheia, especialmente dos trabalhadores pobres, as injusticas sociais, anestesia das pessoas perante as tragédias que corriqueiramente ocorrem nas grandes cidades e ao preconceito de classe.
Esta musica fala sobre a classe dominante incomodada por ser "atrapalhada" pela morte de um trabalhador que morre em uma rua na contra mão apos se suicidar se atirando de um prédio em construção aonde trabalhava. O rico mais preocupado com seu sábado do que com a vida e a tragédia de um pobre homem. A vida triste e sem perspectiva de um trabalhador que acaba se suicidando de uma construção. É uma tragédia ironicamente diluída e dessignificada pela loucura do mundo moderno das grandes cidades aonde uma vida a menos é só uma vida a menos, desde que não atrapalhe o meu sábado, o transito, nada significa.
Na verdade, a morte do personagem não é por suicídio, mas puro acidente de trabalho que na construção civil acontece aos montes. Tive um primo que morreu assim e muitos brasileiros pobres também têm.
Chico is the greatest Brazilian artist of all time. Composer, singer, writer and playwright. A genius!
Nessa música, há três narrativas para o mesmo fato: a queda de um homem de um prédio. A primeira narrativa mostra o homem como ele realmente é: um excelente trabalhador e é cheio de virtudes ("construiu quatro paredes solidas", "beijou sua mulher como se fosse a última [com intensidade]). As outras duas narrativas só tentam denegrir o coitado para amenizar a responsabilidade dos responsáveis pela queda do coitado ("construiu quatro paredes flácidas", "construiu quatro paredes mágicas [sem os devidos cuidados] ; beijou cada filho seu como se fosse pródigo [o filho pródigo é aquele da Biblia que pega a herança antecipada e gasta tudo]). Em outras músicas, Chico também usa as imagens bíblicas, como em "Calice", em que ele associa o sofrimento de Jesus Cristo com o do povo simples do Brasil.
As duas últimas narrativas desumanizam o trabalhador transformando-o em um acessório. Essa música é do início da década de 70, e o Brasil nessa época era muito ogro.
Essa música contesta o capitalismo e o capitalista, pois só há sobras para os mais pobres narrada com muita ironia na parte final onde se agradece pela fumaça que respiramos, pelos andaimes que caímos, etc.
Pelo menos, houve um significativo melhoramento na legislação, fiscalização e no salário dos trabalhadores da construção civil. Como dizemos aqui: "pedreiros estão sendo pagos a laço ", para dizer que se contrata esses profissionais facilmente.
Entretanto, o Brasil continua tendo muitos pobres. Precisamos defender os mecanismos existentes que começa a interferir na perpetuação da pobreza, tais como o sistema de cotas e a universalização da educação. Tanto um como outro estão sendo ameaçados pela elite.
Se os 30% mais pobres fossem menos pobres o Brasil teria melhores indicadores sociais e, por conseguinte, seria mais desenvolvido. Onde há qualquer tipo de segregação, todo o país sofre, porque os efeitos são certos.
Putz, que textao!
Another layer in this is the way he rhymes; he ends each verse in words tonic at the third from last syllable (proparoxítonas in portuguese), and make these rhyme is very difficult.
He makes this, then changes the words around and the music STILL MAKES SENSE, still rhymes, and add new meanings to the song.
A genius. Period.
Exactly!
I rarely listen to Portuguese songs (I mean the language, I know the singer is Brazilian), but *MAN* this one is really cool. I don't understand the lyrics, but the music and vocals already sold it to me. ^_^
Chico’s masterpiece. Another Brazilian gem is “Àguas de março” with Tom Jobim and Elis Regina.
A Portuguese indication is “O gente da minha terra”. Marisa live version at Belém Tower.
👆
How great it is to see you listening to music from my country. Have you heard others? "Cotidiano" is one of my favorite Chico Buarque's songs, it is quite simple and works a lot. I hope to see you listening to more music from Brasil, great reaction!!
I will be listening to more! I have only just discovered how much I like this music ☺️☺️
My country???? NOSSO!!!
Lyrics are insanely good, I love this song!
Awesome, "Construção" is definitely one of our greatest pieces of music here in Brazil, it's legit one of my top favorites exactly because it's SO wild in so many ways. People already explained to you the political background this particular song has (that this is a protest song commenting on the BR dictatorship going on between the 60s-mid 80s). So, I'll comment on the instrumental part, which is easily one of my favorite aspects in this - the song starts really calm, just the acoustic guitar and some other small sounds here and there, up until the first repetition, when we have "the drop" (lol), and the orchestra fully kicks in at 5:29 , as if they were the horns of the cars, as the traffic is disrupted by the construction worker's body falling on the street. And after that, the orchestra just gets louder and louder and more chaotic, just like he starts to change and mix the lyrics up, thus changing the narrative / PoV / version of the story. The lyrics are so highly praised here,, and for a very good reason, and I go further saying the instrumental is paramount to deliver this story the way it does. It's just fucking amazing and I'm so happy to see you like this song so much, and really caught on the main interpretation even without context!
HIGHLY recommend other songs from the same era! Like Elis Regina - O Bêbado e a Equilibrista; Chico Buarque e Miilton Nascimento - O Que Será; Gal Costa - Vapor Barato; Paulinho da Viola - Sinal Fechado. All of these are commenting on the dictatorship and were written in such a way to hide their messages, in one way or another. Another banger similar to Construção, but more like in the chaotic way they chose to tell the story in it, would be Gilberto Gil e os Mutantes - Domingo no Parque, this one is another I easily consider masterpiece in storytelling music!
I especially like it at 07:03, when the word music is accompanied by one note, and only one note, played on the cuíca in the background, suggesting a samba that is interrupted.
Your request at the end, it's literally another two songs from Chico: Apesar de Você and Cálice.
In English this last one is Chalice, but in Portuguese Cálice is homonym with the expression "Cale-se", which means "Shut up". The song goes "Father, let this shut up (chalice) far from me" in an attempt to avoid the censorship.
Also, it was Chico's birthday last week. Thank you for this great video 🙏🏼
De nada, o prazer foi nosso. Welcome to Chico Buarque. 😊
Chico Boarque is very, very good.
Chico is genius. He wrote these lyrics as a 15 y/o! For his musical genius as composer/arranger try "Meu Guri", "As Vitrines", "Vida" or "Fantasia" (some more subtle than others, all of them exhuberant)
Foi uma honra estar aqui com vocês amigos ❤ e ouvir o grande poeta brasileiro ❤
I loved your analysis, but one thing that those who don't speak Portuguese don't notice is another brilliant thing: ALL the verses end in proparoxytones, that is, all the last words of the verses have the penultimate syllable as the stressed one. Not a just any Portuguese-speaking poet can achive this feat with such brilliance.
and, also, the same number of syllables !
You nailed it! Chico was a genius in criticizing the dictatorship. The censors didn't understand his lyrics and passed them hehehe.
Man, I'm Brazilian and a musician. I love the fact that you are so excited about his music. One thing about Chico Buarque, though, is that he is a very skilled writer and poet. So, if you don't understand Portuguese and don't understand the local culture and politics, you won't get the nuances. In the second part of the song, he is simply playing with the words, shuffling them out of order but giving them amazing new meanings. Also, he uses the musicality of the language to emphasize the end of each verse with a word with three syllables that are accented on the first, like: sábado, último, próximo, pródigo, etc. It is brilliant poetry and amazing music
This song is pure art. The lyrics AND the music are fantastic! One of the top songs of Brazilian pop music ever.
Chico is an amazing songwritter an poet!
Thanks for talking about this song, mate! Chico Buarque is pure poetry.
Chico Buarque is arguably one of the most important musicians/composers/writers in Brazil, especially for his work in dark times, during the military dictatorship between 1964-1985. He wrote a bunch of songs with hidden meaning because he couldn't be explicit, otherwise his songs would get censored. He also wrote at least three plays and a bunch of books.
Construção is basically an "opera/play" about how the working class struggle to meet ends and how their mundane lives mean nothing to those in power. The structure of the song is amazing. The phrases always end with a proparoxytone word, but by repeating words from other parts of the song, he can tell three stories that are actually the same, but from different perspectives. It's freaking genius.
He has other absolutely beautiful songs like "João e Maria", "Cotidiano", "Apesar de Você", and many more!
Interpretation given by Chico Buarque was that the song was portraying what happens when you put a person in a construction, in this case he is using a word construction and he starts playing with his actions, at some point of the story this person suicides. Message is when you are playing with people actions, you end up messing with their feelings and they blow up. The approach of just interpreting this as something associated with politics or protest is very narrow, this something that will keep happening until the end of our days as a human species, as the ending of the song suggest.
Well, we can't discount that at the time Chico couldn't say that this was a political song or it would have been censored, as it was in the middle of our military dictatorship.
@@diegomangueira People who only interpret this song as a political song don't really understand it, it's not just in the context of a specific dictatorship. Living in this world, it is an obligation to serve, using our actions, others who offer us material security in return. But once existential anguish, panic, anxiety is sown and it turns out that it doesn't feel worth it. Our needs and the way we have to exist play with our actions and, incidentally, with our feelings. But hey, military repression, dictatorship, authoritarian governments, that would continue to happen to us even if we returned to the caves, that's why Chico Buarque demands it from God and not from the government in power.
@@Dynamicforeal Where did Chico say that? I don't think he ever explained anything about the meaning of Construção although it is reductive to say it's about the dictatorship. More like about the conditions workers suffered (still do) in Brazil. Also the "deus lhe pague" part is not a demand in anyway in the song, it functions as an ironic way (mimicking the typical brazilian thank you phrase) to say how people are expected to be thankful for the crumbs giving to them and even the misery.
@@NaFran49 "Chico disse, em entrevista à hoje extinta revista Status, em 1973, sobre o processo de criação. “Em ‘Construção’, a emoção estava no jogo de palavras. Agora, se você coloca um ser humano dentro de um jogo de palavras, como se fosse um tijolo, acaba mexendo com a emoção das pessoas. Mas há diferença entre fazer a coisa com intenção ou - no meu caso - fazer sem a preocupação do significado”, disse. O álbum catapultou a carreira de Chico e o levou ao estrelato, sendo um disco com vendas inacreditáveis para a época - 140 mil cópias." link: vermelho.org.br/2021/12/14/os-50-anos-do-disco-construcao-de-chico-buarque/.
@@NaFran49 I keep believing that most people can't see beyond their noses. "May god pay you back" is a widespread expression, It's used here in the whole Latin America, not just in Brazil. And, please man, can it be more obvious that Chico is being ironic?
Recommend Caetano Veloso "Leãozinho". One of the greatest songs from this group of artists. As EMO as fork.
Also Gal Costa, Ney Matogrosso, and sooo many more. These are the "Tropicais" genre. Went down this rabbit hole before I turned Japanese via bandmaid.
These guys were all persecuted by the military regime and many fled to London and were influenced by the music of the early seventies there. Most of them were communists or anarchists
Just about every boomer in Portugal knows most of their output by heart. There was a time when the output of the English speaking World was almost background noise and this was the main event. Much was recorded in London and they were hanging with each other but also the coolest people in the local scene. Maria Betânia was Caetano Veloso's sister and was also a genius, and everyone was making out with everyone else and everything in the alphabet soup was "whatever" for them. There was an expression "sexodiversidade" which covered it all. "sexual diversity"
This song always surrounds me with goosebumps, no matter how many times I listen to it. Chico is a genius
Pra quem é de fora do Brasil as vezes fica muito difícil entender a letra dessa canção escrita com muita maestria pelo Chico Buarque,
Chico is amazing! You would definitely like to react to "Geni e o Zeppelin"!!
Buarque is also a great writer with several published books and some film adaptations, plays, and much more. He worked with Jobim helping the Bossa Nova style to reach new levels. But he is limited as a singer, knowing what to do and not. You show try Elis Regina singing como nossos pais, another political song from Brasil. She was a great singer, and the lyrics by Belchior are amazing. Easy to find with subtitles with live performance
This is indeed a fuckin' masterpiece of a song, and I'm very glad to see that a foregner that doesn't know any detail of Portuguese language can feel how impactful "Construção" is. This song still brings me chills since when I first listened when I was 12, and made me wanting to be a songwriter as well. So, Chico Buarque has to have his place of recognition in a worldwide importance.
Glad to see the world discovering Buarque's greatness :)
This song is our " A day in the life", from the perspective of a Brazilian salaried worker during the dictatorship.
Essa música é uma ópera , uma peça teatral, um filme...
o chico usa a letra como um jogo de caça palavras onde basta trocar algumas e mudar o sentido, apenas trocandoas de lugar
Não só isso, todas as linhas da música acabam com proparoxitonas, fazendo rimas com a sílaba tônica de cada, doideira kkkkk
I like to think of it this way, in all passages the man dies and in all of them the only thing this event does is disrupt the lives of others. as if he didn't exist 😢
One way to see the music is: it tells three versions (or three different workers) and none of their deaths matter, the working class doesn't matter at all. Another way to understand is as a guy said here in the comments, about the military dictatorship using different descriptions and changing the scene as they used to by that period.
I just learned from the comments the reading of this as the pov of different parties (the actual facts vs the employer's pov vs the polive pov etc) which is interesting and really makes sense, but to me this has always been different people he's talking about in each verse and how we're all expendable in society especially as members of a working class. Like yesterday this person like this died like that, and today at this other working place this other person like that died like this and so forth, and how in all of these cases their deaths meant nothing. A nuisance if anything really. Maybe, the only people who'd care are their families, who have absolutely no voice in the matter.
This world we've built is fkd up.
This song always punches me in the gut when I listen to it.
Construção is the fucking best song in the world ever. One needs to have a Brazilian soul to understand it. Chico is a genius!!!!!!
I would recommend "Desalento" from Chico too, its another amazing music of his. Great video!
This song is indeed a lyrical masterpiece, absolutely beautiful.
I'd also recommend Chico's "Apesar de Você" (Despite You). A song that, amazingly, was able to bypass censorship despite its incredibly strong anti-dictatorship message. He told them it was about a rooster who thought he ruled a garden and is surprised that the sun comes up without him xD
He really did that and censors ate it up? 😂I know the song but I always thought maybe he had released it from outside of Brazil as the political message seems so obvious
The irony of "God pay you" is overwhelming and reminds us of something typical Brazilian. The music is from the 70s, a time of military dictatorship in Brazil. Songs of protest and denouncing social dramas were important during this period, although many were censored by dictators. Chico Buarque had to release songs under a pseudonym (Julinho de Adelaide) to circumvent censorship.
This is pure gold
I feel so privileged to be alive at a time when there is an artist like Chico, a genius, for those who know Portuguese his unique ability to compose melody, rhyme and fabulous lyrics is even better. I recommend the live album at Le Zenith. When I was in Paris, I had to go and see the venue of his monstrous performance.
Fun fact (told me by my father): at this time, a famous brazilian artist was asked how he wrote his songs and rhymes, and he said that he used to look for words with strong syllables being the last or the one before the last (oxytones and paroxytones) and when asked why he said "because it's impossible to make a rhyming lyric with proparoxytones (strong syllable being the two before the last one), it's just too difficult".... Chico Buarque apparently heard this interview and was intrigued to see if he could do this. And he could... and it is still today a masterpiece for those listening to the lyrics in portuguese!
❤Thank you!!! Next react, please : Chico Buarque - Geni e o Zepelim
For me it's the best song made in Brazil of all time
This song isn't for everyone. And your perspective about the lyrics was really on point.
Chico é uma lenda viva.
Um gigante intelectual em todos sentidos.
Obrigado Chico por viver no nosso tempo.
Essa música é uma obra prima. Uma das minha preferidas do Chico. Realmente um gênio e só de pensar que um dia ele não estará mais vivo, sera uma perca enorme.
Ao fim da análise acertaste na mosca... mas não era só um grito político contra um Estado opressor , era a construção de uma Obra de Arte numa época em que os brasileiros sabiam do que se tratava. Continue com a música brasileira das décadas de 60, 70 e 80 elas podem redimir os EUA.
Hola amigo!, escribo esto antes de terminar de ver tu video reacción, para decirte que estoy sorprendido de ver que reaccionas a esta canción memorable, impresionante y magistral del gran maestro y poeta brasilero Chico Buarque !. Un gran ejemplo del movimiento llamado "tropicalía" de los años 60's junto a otros monstruos de la, entonces nueva, música brasilera. Por cierto, el protagonista decide suicidarse, haciendo creer a su familia que solo iba a trabajar como cualquier día !. El maestro Chico no podía contarlo como cualquiera lo haría !. Un gran abrazo desde Buenos Aires !.
Hello friend!, I write this before finishing watching your reaction video, to tell you that I am surprised to see that you react to this memorable, impressive and masterful song by the great Brazilian teacher and poet Chico Buarque! A great example of the movement called "tropicalía" of the 60's along with other monsters of the then new Brazilian music. By the way, the protagonist decides to commit suicide, making his family believe that he was just going to work like any other day! Teacher Chico couldn't tell it like anyone else would! A big hug from Buenos Aires!
I really liked your reaction. Thanks for shining a light on this amazing brazilian artist. You should react to Cartola next "Preciso me encontrar". But there are an infinite number of brazilian songs that are masterpieces, just like this one, waiting to be listened.
Chico Buarque é um incrível compositor, do tipo que aparece a cada cem anos ou mais. Esse vídeo capitou muita coisa da música, mesmo muitas coisas sendo regionais.
Chico Buarque, autoexilou-se na Itália em 1969, devido à crescente repressão do regime militar do Brasil nos chamados "anos de chumbo", tornando-se, ao retornar, em 1970, um dos artistas mais ativos na crítica política e na luta pela democratização no país. Em 1971, foi lançado Construção, tido pela crítica como um de seus melhores trabalhos.
São como crônicas em forma de música. É o caso da faixa-título do disco, que narra o que seria um dia comum na vida de um operário da construção civil, mas que acaba de modo trágico. O que faz o disco ser um marco na carreira do artista é a complexidade. Isso aparece principalmente na faixa-título, que é, ela própria, uma construção.
“Ele vai jogando os adjetivos, então às vezes a parede é sólida, às vezes a parede é flácida. Tudo ali tem a ideia... e o ritmo, que é um ritmo arrastado... Ele vai fazendo como se fosse colocando tijolos”.
" Vale destacar os arranjos feitos por Rogério Duprat, o maestro da Tropicália".
“O Duprat faz picaretas batendo, aquela metaleira toda é o trânsito, a gente consegue visualizar esse ambiente. Ele constrói essa ambientação, e não com ruído, com sonoplastia. É com música. Tem um elemento narrativo que faz parte de ‘Construção’ e que passa a existir dessa forma no tropicalismo”.
A letra foi composta em versos dodecassílabos, que sempre terminam numa palavra proparoxítona. Os 17 versos da primeira parte (quatro quartetos, acrescidos de um verso-desfecho) são praticamente os mesmos dezessete que compõem a segunda parte, mudando apenas a última palavra.
Durante o governo do general Médici, o Brasil enfrentou os anos mais duros da repressão, sendo um período de grande turbulência política. Nessa época o Brasil vivia um contexto de construção civil aquecido, o governo estava promovendo grandes obras, como a construção de hidrelétricas e rodovias, as chamadas “obras faraônicas". Esses migrantes vinham para o Sudeste, para os grandes centros, São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, trabalhar nessa construção civil.
Driblar a censura foi um aprendizado para todos os artistas e intelectuais que, a partir de 1964, se engajaram na resistência ao regime militar. Os que estavam vinculados à música popular encontraram nas letras das canções uma forma de protesto, quase sempre se valendo de metáforas, na tentativa de despistar o olhar vigilante da ditadura. Houve também uma mudança de foco da produção cultural brasileira, que antes do golpe buscava, como se dizia à época, “despertar a visão crítica e promover o protagonismo” das classes populares.
compilação de trechos : jornalista Miriam Bevilacqua em entrevista para Brasil de FATO, EBC e Wikipedia da letra e da canção.
Ele simplesmente não aguentou a vida.
Next one from Chico Buarque I recommend Apesar de Você or Geni e o Zepelim if you can of course I would be very happy :) loved your reaction keep it up!
The rhymes all come from proparoxytone words and these are the words he exchanges when repeating the verses, keeping the rhymes and changing the meaning yet somehow giving an overall meaning to the text
The messy horns after he falls are meant to be the traffic stopping.
Chico Buarque is a Genius. In this music in ALL verses he used only proparoxytones, as their last words, giving a Very poem like effect
The way I see it, these are three different stories about three different guys who work construction and end up dying on the job. It's genius how just shifting some words around he makes up total different personalities for them, like one really likes his family and does a good job, the other one is drunk before arriving on the site, his walls stay up as if they were magical. The last one is jaded, doing the bare minimum at home and on the job, loving like a machine, building floppy walls. Even his resting is animal-like, like it's instinct, like he's just on auto pilot. And they're disposable. There's always another one. You get the feeling you could shift those words around a thousand times and tell a thousand stories where a working guy dies and his body becomes a general annoyance. Buildings are good tho
Chico Buarque é genial e Construção é música brilhante. Letra é música sobre a vida de trabalhadores sob a luta de classes.
Could I recommend something more left field from Latin America specifically from Brazil and 'Cantico Brasileiro No.3 (Kamaiura)', by Maria Rita from 1988 which is an amazing fusion of new-age electronics with indigenous vocals and Amazonian rhythms.
He's a genious. His father, one of Brasil's greatest sociologists (Sergio Buarque de Holanda) is best known as father of Chico, for example
Chico Buarque is a big writer, he was received the "prêmio Camões" the biggest award of the portuguese language
Chico is just the best.
The thing is, he changes the more vague adjectives and that changes the interpretation of the story.
And yes, the music is political. It's one of the songs Chico Buarque did during Brasil's military dictatorship. He is famous for sneaking in protests under the goverment censorship at the time.
It's a great song. Dense and melancholic. You got the metaphorical meaning of the words right. It's a construction worker who it hard, life and work.
There was also a political context. The song was composed in the early 70s when Brazil was under a dictatorship. So there was a strong left vs right, capitalism vs socialism dichotomy. Chico Buarque had to leave the country because of his leftist political activism.
Yes is a political song written at the height of the military dictatorship. It criticizes the working conditions of humble people and how even in death they are treated only as a nuisance. In the end, the last stanzas are an irony where the humble are "thankful" for the miserable life they have. There are details in the poetry that make it a masterpiece of the Portuguese language for which Chico was awarded the Luiz de Camões prize in Portugal. He uses Alexandrian verses with the same number of syllables, all ending in proparoxytone. Something very difficult to do.
Cuba sounds like a plan.
Definitely check out Ruben Gonzalez, but my top shout would be "PATRIA y VIDA - Celia Cruz, Arturo Sandoval, Yotuel, Gente De Zona, Descemer B, Maykel O, El Funky" which has been adopted as an anti-government protest song, and won at the Latin Grammys.
Sounds interesting to me!
Um exemplo da genialidade do grande mestre Chico Buarque do Brasil, obrigado por existir e nos brindar com tantas obras primas. ❤
Most people conmsider Construção the masterpiece of Chico Buarque.. and it is fantastic (although me, as a fan, think its hard to define his masterpiece... his job is amazing... REALLY). It starts telling the "true" story of what hapened, a normal guy went to work in a building and died... the second time, by changing, slight, the words at end (the "adjectives") he builds (and the building... the song is being built everytime) another narrative.. the guy is not so normal, responsible, good man of family, etc.. in the third part, the narrative is that he is a crap, a bad guy, had lots of lovers, pretty irresponsible, he died on the street disturbing our lifes, who think he is to do that? Oh my God, this is a real bad guy and... and yeah, that is the narrative who will come out in the newspapper 🙂 Also, lots of layers here, you can think about it for years and find new things everytime...
The first part, when he dies (disturbing the traffic), and the horns let themsleves be heard... thats the traffic... honks and noises, and curses, etc..
After the three part, the music changes to "Deus Lhe Pague", which was censored, so he made a little piece of it together in this record your heard... Deus Lhe Pague is waaaaaayy bigger and more dense, hard to listen, than the little part you heard here. "for the sundays, who are beautyfull, tv novels, church mass and comic books... God pays you"... Deus lhe Pague is something we say when someone do a good thing to us, its almost like God Bless you in USA. But here it is ironic...
Chico is amazing.. look from him, Sabiá (he made with Tom Jobim, another awesome composer), Valsinha, Jo~eao e Maria, Noite dos Mascarados, Meu Guri, Mulheres de Atenas (this one is AMAZING.. while all people, mostly man, in Brasil, were asking for freedom of speech, of choice, of vote, etc, cos we were at a military goverment... Chico made this song... you change Women from Athens to Women from brazil... you want freedom, speech, liberty, but what you do with your wife inside your home? Do you really give her freedom, choices, speech? AMAZING), O Meu Amor, Terezinha... and so on... geee, its Chico, the best poetry person on planet, I just think he may be toe to toe with Cecília Meireles, a poet girl from Brasil too, but she wasnt a musician... and maybe Violeta Parra, Chilean poet, author of several musics, the best one is Gracias A La Vida, Argentina singer Mercedes Sosa sang it, and a brazilian group called Tarancon did it too.. all good versions of the song.
Thanks for the react, I realy loved it..
Nosso prêmio Camões!!!
Chico! Orgulho nacional!
Something that is very apparent, especially here, is the fact that the sound quality on Twitch is so poor in comparison to what is presented here, which implies what we hear on Twitch is not what you hear on streams or at least me. It makes listening to these final products essential. I almost didn't as previously the sound quality was not great but, this is fabulous.
I assume Twitch compresses the signal a fair amount, which would explain a lot.
Todas as palavras finais das frases são proparoxítonas e se misturam durante a música. Genial, Chico Buarque de Holanda!
Working conditions were very poor in the times of the military dictatorship. Low wages and no safety at all... it is known that several workers died in the construction of Rio-Niteroi bridge and were concreted in it.
Muito grato pela publicação, mas seria bom que tivesse a tradução dos seu comentário.
Para os estrangeiros que estudam o português, estudar as letras de Chico Buarque será simplesmente um deleite.
That is pure genius! Chico wrote that lyrics when Brazil was passing by a dictatorial regime. A lot of labor strikes took place in the whole country, and the military just sent a lot of then to jail. Chico wrote a normal life of a simple man, a construction labor, who died due the poor work conditions and long shift hours. And he showed that any life is not that simple, is more than that: he has a wife, kids, and his work is simple but important. Even though, his is just one more face in the crowd, nobody cares. Chico used the complexity of the arrangement mixed to the lyrics to show that is much more there then the obvious. At the end of each verse, he used a proparoxytone word, and then he changed those final words and created new metaphors with the same verses, showing all the complexity that a normal life has, our dreams and desires. But still, nobody cares. Just beatiful.
Great reaction! Chico is amazing! You should try Roda Viva, Apesar de Você and O Que Será also from him. All these songs were written during the Brazilian military dictatorship, at that time there was a lot of artistic censorship, so Chico had to be very creative so that his songs, that criticized the military regime, were not censored, that's why he is a genius and his songs always have a hidden meaning.
love this album. it is deep.
Yes, he is talking about men who do heavy manual work, and the risks they are exposed to.