“Minha fama de mau” (Erasmo Carlos, 1965)
Source: Will Mumu Silva, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Brazilian rock icon Erasmo Carlos died in 2022. Today would have been his 82nd birthday. Below a translation of “Minha fama de mau” (“My bad rep”) from his first album, the 1965 “Pescaria” (“Fishing”). (This was also the title of a 2019 biopic about him.)
(the version above is from Carlos’s “50 years on the road” show;
a more contemporaneous version of the song seems somehow slighter)
“My bad rep”
Sometimes my love says
She wants to go to the movies
I look and see, well
There’s no problem
And I say no, please
Don’t insist and take off
I don’t want to torture my heart
A girl going to the movies
Is a normal thing
But it’s just that I have to
Maintain my bad rep
My love cries and cries
And says she’s leaving
Begs me to ask her for
Forgiveness right away
And I say no, please
Don’t insist and leave
I don’t want to torture my heart
Forgiving your girlfriend
Is a normal thing
But it’s just that I have to
Maintain my bad rep
And I say no
I say no
I say no, no, no
I have to maintain my bad rep
I have to maintain my bad rep
Every recording of this song that I can find online ends there. However, lyrics sites include more words (not clear if it’s actually another verse or not) that add an ironic tone to this song. Without this other part (translated below), one can only interpret this song as ironic machismo with some wishful thinking and hopeful reading of tone…
Oh, love, take me to the movies
What movies no way
Movies, movies
Your place is in the kitchen
Oh, it’s going to start
I’ll go to the strip club, eh
You this, you that, you crazy
You cuttlefish, you little covenist, cuttle, be, whatever
You wanna just keep reading porno mags
Look what I’ll do to them
I’ll rip them all up
Love, let’s forget everything and catch a movie
Only if it’s a western
Western, okay
Shall we?
Let’s go
Right this way
Go on
My queen
My queen
I love you so much (you’re so bad)