“Insensatez” (Tom Jobim, 1963)
Source: VinnyWiki, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In honor of what would have been Tom Jobim’s 98th birthday, I offer a translation of one of his many songs to become a standard. This one comes from his first album, 1963’s “The Composer of Desafinado Plays,” which also includes “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Água de Beber” along with several other standards. Like those two songs, the Portuguese lyrics to “Insensatez” were written by Vinícius de Moraes and there are also English lyrics written by Norman Gimbel. Below I show the Portuguese version, Gimbel’s version, and my own translation from the original Portuguese. Obviously Gimbel had the limitation of making the lyrics work with the music, and he clearly decided to go a different direction from Moraes’s lyrics. But I feel compelled to point out that he really missed some nuance on the word in the title, falling into the trap of the false cognate. (“Insensatez” is a lack of sense; a lack of sensitivity would be “insensível.”)
Listen to the original instrumental song
Listen to the Portuguese lyrics
Listen to Iggy Pop’s 2009 version
“Insensatez” (Lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes)
Ah, insensatez, o que você fez?
Coração mais sem cuidado
Fez chorar de dor o seu amor
Um amor tão delicado
Ah, por que você foi fraco assim?
Assim, tão desalmado?
Ah, meu coração, quem nunca amou
Não merece ser amado
Vai, meu coração, ouve a razão
Usa só sincericade
Quem semeia vento, diz a razão
Colhe sempre tempestade
Vai, meu coração
Pede perdão, perdão apaixonado
Vai, porque quem não pede perdão
Não é nunca perdoado
Bravo!
“Foolishness” (trans. by S. Smith)
Ah, foolishness, what have you done?
A heart most careless
Made its love cry in pain
Such a delicate love
Ah, why were you weak like that?
Like that, so soulless?
Ah, my heart, those who never loved
Don’t deserve to be loved
Go on, my heart, listen to reason
Just be sincere
Those who sow the wind, says reason
Always reap whirlwinds
Go, my heart
Beg forgiveness, passionate forgiveness
Go, because those who don’t ask to be forgiven
Are never forgiven
Bravo!
“How Insensitive” (Lyrics by N. Gimbel)
How insensitive
I must have seemed
When he told me that he loved me
How unmoved and cold
I must have seemed
When he told me so sincerely
Why he must have asked
Did I just turn and stare in icy silence
What was I to say
What can you say
When a love affair is over
Now he's gone away
And I'm alone
With a memory of his last look
Vague and drawn and sad
I see it still
All his heartbreak in that last look
How he must have asked
Could I just turn and stare in icy silence
What was I to do
What can one do
When a love affair is over