Alceu Valença (born July 1, 1946 in São Bento do Una, Pernambuco, Brazil) i… Read Full Bio ↴Alceu Valença (born July 1, 1946 in São Bento do Una, Pernambuco, Brazil) is a Brazilian composer, writer, performer, actor, and poet.

Alceu Valenca was born in countryside Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He is considered the most successful artist in achieving an aesthetic balance between traditional northeastern Brazilian music and a broad range of electronic sounds and effects from pop music. One can find traces of maracatu, coco and "repentes de viola" (improvising fast-paced Brazilian folk music) in most of his songs. Alceu was able to utilize the electric guitar the electric bass, and lately even a synthesizer was added to his broad scope of musical instruments.

Because of that, Alceu was able to recreate Northeastern traditional music, like baiao, coco, toada, maracatu, frevo, caboclinhos, embolada and repentes: all sung with a sometimes rock sometimes alternative sounding music background. His music and his themes are intangible, universal and unlimited. However, his aesthetic basis is genuinely Brazilian Northeastern music.

Mensageira Dos Anjos
Alceu Valença Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

A mensageira dos anjos
Com seu cabelo lilás
Aperreava os demônuios
Que habitam as catedrais
Do meu peito de menino

A deusa mãe da preguiça
Falava tão devagar

Era o sussurro da brisa
Era o balanço do mar

Como uma estrela cadente
Entrou na minha morada
Bebeu da minha saliva
Saiu e não disse nada

E eu fiquei sem demônios
Um anjo torto marcado

No céu da boca, no peito
No meu corpo tatuado

Overall Meaning

The song "Mensageira Dos Anjos" by Alceu Valença tells the story of a celestial messenger, or an angel, who comes to take away the singer's demons. The angel has lilac-colored hair and she torments the demons that inhabit the cathedral of the singer's heart. The "deusa mãe da preguiça," or the goddess mother of laziness, speaks slowly and calmly like the whisper of the wind or the gentle swaying of the sea. The angel arrives like a shooting star and enters the singer's home. She drinks his saliva and leaves without saying a word. The singer is left without his demons and with a strange mark on his mouth, chest, and body.

The lyrics have a mystical and ethereal quality to them, with references to angels, demons, and goddesses. The contrast between the tumultuous demons and the calm and gentle angel symbolizes the transformation of the singer's inner turmoil into peace and harmony. The mark left on the singer's body could be interpreted as a physical manifestation of the spiritual transformation he undergoes.

Line by Line Meaning

A mensageira dos anjos
The messenger of angels

Com seu cabelo lilás
With her lilac hair

Aperreava os demônuios
Bothered the demons

Que habitam as catedrais
Living in the cathedrals

Do meu peito de menino
Of my boyish heart

A deusa mãe da preguiça
The lazy goddess mother

Falava tão devagar
Spoke so slowly

Era o sussurro da brisa
She was the whisper of the breeze

Era o balanço do mar
She was the sway of the sea

Como uma estrela cadente
Like a shooting star

Entrou na minha morada
Entered my dwelling