“Deixa eu dizer” (Ivan Lins, 1973)
Source: May S. Young from Metro NYC, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This song, written by Ivan Lins with words by Ronaldo Monteiro de Souza and sung by Cláudya, will be the focus of this week’s Brazuca Sounds bonus episode. Despite the fact that there really aren’t that many lyrics in this song, from a translating point of view, it offers a lot. For example, there’s a trap in the very first word—“deixa”—which is from the verb “deixar” (to leave or to let, but also to stop/cease, to allow/permit, to abandon/vacate, to quit, to drop). In the phrase “deixa eu dizer” it’s operating in one of its most idiomatic constructions in which the subject pronoun “eu” (“I”) goes in place of what really should be an object pronoun. The first two words of the song could go any number of directions and it’s not until the third repetition of “deixa” in the 3-word phrase that gives the song its title that it becomes clear which of the myriad “deixas” is being used. Someone listening to the song for the first time could hear “Stop, stop” or “leave it, leave it” at the beginning. The options in English seem, somehow, less rich, although I’ve played with them a bit.
The line about venting (“preciso demais desabafar”) is a little tricky as well because of the middle word. Just “preciso desabafar” would be “I need to vent.” (The word “desabafar” in itself is fun: it literally means to vent or blow off steam and etymologically it’s something similar to steam that is being released, although something dryer and more unpleasant than just steam. A “bafo” can be a puff of air; if a day is “abafado” it’s muggy.) The “demais” means “too much” but in English we can’t really say “I need to vent too much” so we lose the urgency with the best viable alternative of “really” (unless we went with something like “I need to vent so bad”).
Other smaller linguistic elements include “riso” (which means “laughter” but Brazilians often use “rir/to laugh” and “sorrir/to smile” interchangeably) and “dizer” (which means “to say” but also sometimes “to tell” and with the absent pronoun so common to Brazilian Portuguese, could here be either so I’ve used both). And of course, as Leandro points out on the Brazuca Sounds episode, the whole song is a well-crafted anti-dictatorship metaphor.
“Deixa eu dizer”
Deixa, deixa
Deixa eu dizer o que penso dessa vida
Preciso demais desabafar
Deixa, deixa
Deixa eu dizer o que penso dessa vida
Preciso demais desabafar
Suportei meu sofrimento
De face mostrada e riso inteiro
Se hoje canto o meu lamento
Coração cantou primeiro
E você não tem direito
De calar a minha boca
Afinal, me dói no peito
Uma dor que não é pouca
Tem dó!
“Let me say”
Stop, stop
Let me tell you what I think about this life
I really need to vent
Let me, let me
Let me say what I think about this life
I need to vent so bad
I put up with my suffering
Showing my face with a full smile
If today I’m singing my lament
My heart sang it first
And you have no right
To shut me up
After all, my chest hurts
With no small pain
Take pity!