“Mistério do Planeta” (Novos Baianos, 1972)
Source: Eu marco, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Through the band Novos Baianos, Luiz Galvão had a tremendous impact on Brazilian music. The Novos Baianos’ landmark 1972 album “Acabou Chorare” (from which this cryptic song “Mistério do Planeta” comes) mixed samba, rock, bossa nova, frevo, choro, and baião. Galvão died on his 87th birthday, one year ago this coming Sunday.
“Mistério do Planeta”
Vou mostrando como sou
E vou sendo como posso
Jogando meu corpo no mundo
Andando por todos os cantos
E pela lei natural dos encontros
Eu deixo e recebo um tanto
E passo aos olhos nus
Ou vestidos de lunetas
Passado, presente
Participo sendo o mistério do planeta
O tríplice mistério do stop
Que eu passo por e sendo ele
No que fica em cada um
No que sigo o meu caminho
E no ar que fez, que assistiu
Abra um parênteses
Não esqueça que independente disso
Eu não passo de um malandro
De um moleque do Brasil
Que peço e dou esmolas
Mas ando e penso sempre com mais de um
Por isso ninguém vê minha sacola
“Mystery of the Planet”
I’ve been showing what I am
And I keep being what I can
Throwing my body into the world
Wandering through all the corners
And by the natural law of encounters
I leave and receive so much
And I pass before my eyes
Naked or wearing shades
Past, present
I participate by being the mystery of the planet
The triple mystery of the “stop”
That I pass through and it being
That which remains in each of us
That which my path follows
And in the air that pretended it saw
Open parentheses
Don’t forget that regardless of that
I’m no more than a hustler
A kid from Brazil
That I beg for and give out handouts
But I wander and always think about more than one
That’s why nobody sees my bag
I would be remiss as a linguist if I didn’t mention that the words “past, present | I participate” in the original (“passado, presente | Participo”) sound very much like a play on words of “passado, presente, particípio” (“past, present, participle”), an interpretation I think supported by Galvão’s sly grin in the video at that point.