“A Casa” (Boca Livre, 1980)
Source: TV Brasil, CC BY 3.0 BR <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Today is the 70th birthday of Claudio Nucci, a former member of the Brazilian band Boca Livre (the second member of that group to turn 70 this year). This song was part of Vinícius de Moraes’s project “A Arca de Noé” (“Noah’s Ark”), a 2-album arrangement of his 1970’s book of children’s poems. Other big names who participated in the project include Seu Jorge, Maria Bethânia, Caetano Veloso, Marisa Monte, Chico Buarque, Ivete Sangalo, Erasmo Carlos, and more. Although the song is obviously really simple, I upped the level of difficulty on the translation by trying to maintain the rhyme scheme while still preserving the meaning. Frankly, I think Vinícius would have been okay with the result: Only one line (the second one) wanders very far from the original and I feel like I’ve kept the childish humor, especially in the 7th and 8th lines.
“A Casa”
Era uma casa muito engraçada
Não tinha teto não tinha nada
Ninguém podia entrar nela não
Porque na casa não tinha chão
Ninguém podia dormir na rede
Porque na casa não tinha parede
Ninguém podia fazer pipi
Porque penico não tinha ali
Mas era feita com muito esmero
Na Rua dos Bobos, número zero
“The House”
Once there was a funny house
Without a roof for even a mouse
Nobody could go indoors
Because the house it had no floors
A hammock no one could install
Because the house it had no wall
Nobody could pee-pee there
Because of potties it was bare
But built with care it was a treat
At number zero Foolish Street