FIVE YEARS! CINCO ANOS!
Source: Marcelo Teson, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This blog is five years old today! My first post, on April 15, 2021, was about tax terminology in Brazil. My second post was about the poet Paulo Leminski. My third post—and my first music post—was my translation of Seu Jorge’s version of David Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel” side by side with the lyrics by Bowie. So here again I offer a song that started in English, got reimagined in Portuguese (for the movie “Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”), and translated by me back into English.
Listen to Seu Jorge’s “Five Years”
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NOW COMPLETE with 255 songs that I’ve translated here
STARTING AND ENDING WITH SEU JORGE
“Five Years” by Seu Jorge
Muito tempo eu fico
A viver pelos mares
Mergulhando profundo
Em recifes e corais
Minha missão nesse mundo
É pesquisar animais
Mergulhando no escuro
Com perigos reais
E por isso agora
Que eu cheguei aqui
Nada vai me tentar a fazer desistir
Eu não posso dormir
Com você nos meus sonhos
Já conheço seu dorso
Seu olhar tão medonho
E é sem ar que eu fico
Há muito tempo fico
E nunca fico rico
Aí por isso eu grito
Hoje eu te frito
Sob o mar ou horizonte
Fico a admirar no cais
Quanto o vento está calmo
Tudo fica em paz
Eu estou nesta trilha
E não sei quanto tempo faz
Eu não vejo sentido
Mais nos meus ideias
E agora que eu fiz um acorde maior
Para cantar pra você
Minha angústia e dor
Não me deixe aqui
Sem carinho e só
Venha viver comigo
Venha ser meu amor
Porque eu não vivo há
Five years
Quase não vi nada nesses
Five years
Estar no mar azul é meu viver há
Five years
Ir de norte a sul é minha sina há
Five years
Seu Jorge’s “Five Years” translated by S. Smith
I spend a lot of time
Living on the seas
Diving deep
On reefs and corals
My mission in this world
Is researching animals
Diving in the dark
With real dangers
And that’s why now
That I’ve arrived here
Nothing will tempt me to give up
I can’t sleep
With you in my dreams
I already know your back
Your gaze so fearful
And I lose my breath
I’ve been here a long time
And I never get rich
So that’s why I shout
Today I’ll get you
On the sea or horizon
I stand and admire from the dock
How calm the wind is
Everything is peaceful
I’m on this track
And I don’t know how long it’s been
I don’t see any sense
Anymore in my ideas
And now that I’ve struck a major chord
To sing to you
My anguish and pain
Don’t leave me here
With no love and alone
Come live with me
Come be my love
Because I haven’t lived for
Five years
I saw almost nothing in those
Five years
Being on the blue sea is my life for
Five years
Going from north to south is my fate for
Five years
“Five Years” by David Bowie
Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TV's
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people
And all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people
A girl my age went off her head
Hit some tiny children
If the black hadn't a-pulled her off
I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm
Fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest
And a queer threw up at the sight of that
I think I saw you in an ice cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes, cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
Don't think you knew you were in this song
And it was cold, and it rained, so I felt like an actor
And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk
We've got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we've got