“Pela internet” by Gilberto Gil (1997)
Source: Ministério da Cultura do Brasil, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This song from Gil’s 1997 album “Quanta” is inspired by what many consider to be the first recorded samba: “Pelo telefone”/“On the telephone” (1917, Donga), which he refers to directly in the last translated lines below.
“On the internet”
Create my web site
Build my homepage
How many gigabytes does it take
To make a jangada and a boat that can sail
That can sail on this info-sea
That can catch the ebb of the info-tide
That can take an oriki from my old orixá
To the port of a diskette of a PC in Taipei
A boat that can sail on this info-sea
That can catch the ebb of the info-tide
That can take my email all the way to Calcutta
After a hotlink at a site in Helsinki to fuel up
I want to go on the net
To start a debate
Get together by Internet
A group of groupies from Connecticut
Access the boss of the Milan Mac-militia
From Connecticut
A mafioso hacker just released
A virus to attack programs in Japan
I want to go on the net to contact
The homes of Nepal, the bars of Gabon
Cuz the chief of the Rio police warns by cellphone
That out in the Praça Onze there’s some video poker to play
To play
To play
To play