“Baby” (Caetano Veloso, 1968)
Source: Teca Lamboglia from São Paulo, Brasil, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
I originally posted a translation of this song here on September 26, 2021, Gal Costa’s 76th birthday, with this simple intro:
Gal Costa was born Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos in Salvador, Bahia, on September 26, 1945. This song (“Baby” in the original and of course in translation) was her first big solo success, first appearing as a track on the multi-artist 1968 album “Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis.”
Gal passed away just a little over a year later, on November 9, 2022. I’m reposting this translation now partly to belatedly credit Caetano Veloso with writing it. Gal Costa was the first person to record “Baby” and it is permanently linked with her more than Caetano, but credit is due. I’m also reposting because “Baby” was included on a list of “Lesser Known Love Songs” on NPR’s All Songs Considered on February 4 of this year. Lars Gotrich justified including this “weird love song” by “Brazilian goddess Gal Costa” on the list because
“Gal Costa in the late sixties was part of the Tropicalia movement in Brazil, which, basically a bunch of musicians and artists had to disguise what they were singing and what they were saying kind of through hidden messages because they were under a dictatorship at the time and the government was highly censoring everything that they were saying and singing. And this is a song that was written by Caetano Veloso - he appears on this track as well - and it’s sort of a song that pokes fun at American capitalism and consumerism. And they’re kind of poking fun at all these Americanisms that were making their way into Brazil in the late sixties and a lot of folks were feeling a certain way about their culture being kind of taken over by American culture and so they’re kind of like saying, like, “you need to have the margarine, you need to have the gasoline in order to love me” but at the end of the day it’s ultimately a song about you don’t need all of these things, we just need each other.”
I totally agree that this is a love song to both a person and a country. Gotrich goes on to say that he has read some translations of the lyrics that led to his interpretation. And now I’m offering my translation to the mix, slightly tweaked from what I posted in 2021, hopefully to capture a little more musicality, but also to do a little more justice to both Caetano and Gal. Also, my earlier version didn’t include Caetano’s voice near the end singing what Gotrich hears as “don’t leave me” and believes was to both the person he loves and to the country he loves. I totally agree, but the words at the end actually seem to come from Paul Anka’s 1958 song “Diana” (some sources say that Caetano is saying “baiana” which does have some logic, but I think it’s crystal clear that the word starts with a “d” rather than a “b”), only adding to the “love song to person and country that is also anti-capitalist commentary” interpretation. Happy Valentine’s Day!
“Baby” (original by Caetano Veloso)
Você precisa saber da piscina
Da margarina, da Carolina, da gasolina
Você precisa saber de mim
Baby, baby, eu sei que é assim
Baby, baby, eu sei que é assim
Você precisa tomar um sorvete na lanchonete
Andar com a gente, me ver de perto
Ouvir aquela canção do Roberto
Baby, baby, há quanto tempo
Baby, baby, há quanto tempo
Você precisa aprender inglês
Precisa aprender o que eu sei
E o que eu não sei mais
E o que eu não sei mais
Não sei, comigo vai tudo azul
Contigo vai tudo em paz
Vivemos na melhor cidade
Da América do Sul, da América do Sul
Você precisa, você precisa,
Você precisa
Não sei, leia na minha camisa
Baby, baby, I love you
Baby, baby, I love you
“Baby” (translation by S. Smith)
You need to know about the swimming pool
About margarine, about Carolina,* about gasoline
You need to know about me
Baby, baby, I know how it is
Baby, baby, I know how it is
You need to have some ice cream at the diner
Walk with us, see me up close
Hear that song by Roberto
Baby, baby, it’s been so long
Baby, baby, it’s been so long
You need to learn English
You need to learn what I know
And what I don’t know anymore
And what more I don’t know
I don’t know, with me it’s all groovy
With you it’s all cool
We live in the best city
In South America, in South America
You need to, you need to
You need to
I don’t know, read it on my shirt
Baby, baby, I love you
Baby, baby, I love you
[Sung in background by Caetano Veloso] Oh please stay with me, Diana, please stay by me, Diana, please stay by me, Diana.
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*There seems to be agreement that this is a reference to Chico Buarque’s “Carolina” but that came out the same year as this song and doesn’t fit the “anti-American imports” vibe of “Baby.” So maybe it’s a reference to something else? James Taylor’s “Carolina in my mind” also came out in 1968. The Beach Boy’s “Caroline, No” came out in 1966; it wasn’t a hit but it was on the blockbuster “Pet Sounds” album. Seu Jorge’s “Carolina” didn’t come out until 2001…
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Shout out to this post about this song, written by a student of one of my grad school colleagues, which led me to rethink some of the lyrics.