Happy 200th, Brazil!
João Bosco and Aldir Blanc originally wrote this song in 1977 as an homage to Charlie Chaplin (called “Carlitos” in Portuguese). Even before Elis Regina recorded it on her 1979 album “Essa mulher” (“That Woman”), it had become an informal anthem of the amnesty movement in Brazil marking the decline of the military dictatorship. On this 200th birthday of Brazil’s independence, with a presidential election in full swing, it seems an appropriate time to offer this translation.
“The Drunkard and the Tightrope Walker”
Falling
The afternoon became a viaduct*
And a drunkard in mourning
Reminded me of Carlitos
The moon
Just like the brothel owner
Asked each cold star
For some brilliance as rent
And clouds
Up in the blotting paper sky
Sucked on tortured stains
What a crazy close call!
The drunkard with a coconut hat
Committed a thousand offences
Against the Brazilian night
My Brazil
That dreams
About the return of Henfil’s brother**
With so many people who left
On the tail of a rocket
Cry
Our kind mother homeland***
Marias and Clarisses are crying****
On the soil of Brazil
But I know
That such a poignant pain
Doesn’t have to be uselessly
Hope
Dance
On the tightrope with a parasol
And on each step of that line
You can hurt yourself
Bad luck
The tightrope walker’s hope
Knowing that every artist’s show
Must go on
* On November 20, 1971, 20,000 tons of concrete fell off an overpass being built over Paulo de Frontin Avenue in Rio. Twenty cars, a bus, and a truck waiting at a stoplight below were flattened; 48 people died.
** Henfil was a famous political cartoonist whose brother, Herbert José de Sousa, known as Betinho, was exiled in Chile from 1971 to 1979.
*** Both verses of Brazil’s national anthem end with “És mãe gentil, pátria amada, Brasil!” (“Thou art a kind mother, beloved homeland, Brazil!”)
**** Maria was the daughter of Manuel Fiel Filho and Clarisse was the wife of Vladimir Herzog. Both men died in the DOI-CODI torture chambers.