“Formigueiro” by Tim Maia
Source: SONIA D'ALMEIDA, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This song was actually written by Ivan Lins, but it’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Tim Maia, who sang it with him.
“Anthill”
Warn the anthill
The anteater is coming
Avisa ao formigueiro
Vem aí tamanduá
To start the conversation, with so much money and so little hurry
Dude breaks his dentures but won’t give up the peanut brittle
Dude drinks and gets ready, gets addicted and gets used to it
And these days it’s hard to stop with this business
Repinique and Xique-Xique,* so many drums with a ring
To cover our ears, to cover our moans
When the drumming stops, another trick appears
Another miracle appears in a way that we know
So many holes, so many leaks you can’t cover it with a screen
You can’t hide from the devil leaving your tail out
And for the guys it’s not easy to figure out so many disguises
To arrange for so many patches if everyone is watching
Warn the anthill
The anteater is coming
*A small town in the state of Bahia, but also the sound of a samba instrument. In Portuguese it’s pronounced sheeky-sheeky and rhymes with two other words in this line: repenique and repique (“ring”).