Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Beatles' 'White Album' by Caetano Veloso

The so-called 'White Album' was released in the USA-UK on 22 November 1968. Brazilian weekly magazine 'Veja' imported it and asked singer-song-writer Caetano Veloso to translate a few songs into Portuguese and published them on the 11 December 1968 issue. 

Assim que o album-duplo dos Beatles (chamado atualmente de 'White Album') foi lançado nos USA (em 22 Novembro 1968), a revista Veja, que tinha sido criada naquele ano por Mino Carta, o mesmo que criara o 'Jornal da Tarde' para o Estadão em 1996), à pedido de Victor Civita (dono da Editora Abril), pediu a Caetano Veloso, que estava na crista da onda com seu movimento Tropicalista, para traduzir algumas músicas do disco-duplo importado. Caetano fez um belo trabalho traduzindo 6 canções... e elas estão recortadas e coladas nessa postagem.


'Piggies' written by George Harrison; translated into Portuguese by Caetano Veloso
McCartney was inspired to write 'Blackbird' while in Scotland as a reaction to racial tensions escalating in the United States in the spring of 1968 due to Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination on 4 April 1968.
'Why don't we do it on the road?'
'Sexy Sadie'
'Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey'
'Dear Prudence'





Veja's columnist (we don't know his name; articles were not signed in 1968) tries his best but commits a few mistakes like saying that Peter, Paul & Mary were 'country & western'. Brazilian journalists didn't seem to grasp the huge difference between 'folk rock' and C&W.


This is the cover of weekly magazine Veja 11 December 1968 issue. Two days later - 13 December 1968 the Military Dictatorship that ruled the country since April 1964 would become even bloodier and violent with the imposition of draconian Institutional Act 5, the infamous AI-5. See the writing on the upper-left-hand-side: Padres subversivos! which means: subversive priests! Those Roman Catholic priests who did charitable work at slums and favelas were seen as 'subversive' and enemies by the regime and (unfortunately) by most of the Press too. 

Bizz, May 1968, reviews 1968's 'Os Mutantes' album.
Arnaldo Dias Baptista in 1980.

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations, dear Lulu Pavone. It's all very good. Doris

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    1. Dear Doris, thank you very much for the help you gave me in getting the Veja article in the first place.

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  2. The music writer was Tárik de Souza, one of the brazilians', but ver young at the time. Caetano is a very good translator, but not rmthis time. The Best translation here is Blackbird

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    1. Thanks for letting us know that Caetano's translation of 'Blackbird' is not quite clear. This song was written by McCartney when Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tenneessee.

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  3. One of brazilians Best. Very young At the time

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