Born in Lisbon, Portugal, official documents have her date of birth as the 23rd July, but Rodrigues always said her birthday was the 1st July 1920. She was born in the rua Martim Vaz (Martim Vaz Street), freguesia of Pena, Lisbon. Her father was a trumpet player and cobbler from Fundão who returned there when Amália was just over a year old, leaving her to live in Lisbon with her maternal grandmother in a deeply Catholic environment until she was fourteen, when her parents returned to the capital and she moved back in with them.
She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" ("Queen of Fado"), and was most influential in popularising fado worldwide. She was unquestionably the most important figure in the genre’s development, by virtue of an innate interpretive talent carefully nurtured throughout a forty-year recording and stage career. Rodrigues' performances and choice of repertoire pushed fado’s boundaries and helped redefine it and reconfigure it for her and subsequent generations. In effect, Rodrigues wrote the rulebook on what fado could be and on how a female singer - or fadista - should perform it, to the extent that she remains an unsurpassable model and an unending source of repertoire for all those who came afterwards.
After a few years of amateur performances, Rodrigues’ first professional engagement in a fado venue took place in 1939, and she quickly became a regular guest star in stage revues. There she met Frederico Valério, a classically-trained composer who, recognising the potential in such a voice, wrote expansive melodies custom-designed for Rodrigues’ voice, breaking the rules of fado by adding orchestral accompaniment.
Her Portuguese popularity began to extend abroad with trips to Spain, a lengthy stay in Brazil (where, in 1945, she made her first recordings on Brazilian label Continental) and Paris (in 1949). In 1950, while performing at the Marshall Plan international benefit shows, she introduced "April in Portugal" to international audiences (under its original title "Coimbra"). In the early fifties, the patronage of the acclaimed Portuguese poet David Mourão-Ferreira marked the beginning of a new phase; Rodrigues sang many of the country's greatest poets, and some wrote lyrics specifically for her.
In 1954, Rodrigues' international career skyrocketed through her presence in Henri Verneuil’s film The Lovers of Lisbon, where she had a supporting role and performed on-screen. By the late 1950s the USA, England, and France had become her major international markets (Japan and Italy followed in the 1970s); in France especially, her popularity rivalled her Portuguese success, and she graduated to headliner at the prestigious Olympia theatre within a matter of months. Over the years, she performed nearly all over the world, going as far as the Soviet Union and Israel.
At the end of the 1950s, Rodrigues took a year off. She returned in 1962 with a richer voice, concentrating on recording and performing live at a slower pace. Her comeback album, 1962's Amália Rodrigues, was her first collaboration with French composer Alain Oulman, her main songwriter and musical producer throughout the decade. As Valério had before him, Oulman wrote melodies for her that transcended the conventions of fado. Rodrigues did not shy away from controversy: her performance in Carlos Vilardebó’s 1964 arthouse film The Enchanted Islands was better received than the film, based on a short story by Herman Melville, and her 1965 recording of poems by 16th century poet Luís de Camões generated acres of newspaper polemics. Yet her popularity remained untouched. Her 1968 single "Vou Dar de Beber à Dor" broke all sales records, and her 1970 album Com que Voz, considered by many her definitive recording, won a number of international awards.
During the 1970s, Rodrigues concentrated on live work, and embarked upon a heavy schedule of worldwide concert performances. During the frenetic period after the 25th April 1974 she was falsely accused of being a covert agent of the PIDE, causing some trauma to her public life and career. (In fact, during the Salazar years, Rodrigues had been an occasional financial supporter of some communists in need.) Her return to the recording studio in 1977 with Cantigas numa Língua Antiga was received as a triumph. The 1980s and 1990s brought her enthronement as a living legend. Her last all-new studio recording, Lágrima, was released in 1983. It was followed by a series of previously lost or unreleased recordings, and the smash success of two greatest hits collections that sold over 200,000 copies combined.
Despite a series of illnesses involving her voice, Rodrigues continued recording as late as 1990. She eventually retreated from public performance, although her career gained in stature with an official biography by historian and journalist Vítor Pavão dos Santos, and a five-hour television series documenting her fifty-year career, featuring rare archival footage (later distilled into the ninety-minute film documentary, The Art of Amália). Its director, Bruno de Almeida, has also produced Amália, Live in New York City (a concert film of her 1990 performance at New York City Hall).
Rodrigues died on the 6th October 1999 at the age of seventy-nine in her home in Lisbon. Portugal's government promptly declared a period of national mourning. Her house (in Rua de São Bento) is now a museum. She is now buried at the National Pantheon alongside other Portuguese notables.
1946.
Anda O Sol Na Minha Rua
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Cada vez até mais tarde
Anda o Sol na minha rua
Cada vez até mais tarde
A ver se pergunta à Lua
A razão por que não arde
A ver se pergunta à Lua
A razão por que não arde
Tanto quer saber por quê
Mas depois fica calado
E nunca ninguém os vê
Andarem de braço dado
E nunca ninguém os vê
Andarem de braço dado
Se me persegues de dia
Se à noite sempre me deixas
Se me persegues de dia
Se à noite sempre me deixas
Não digas que é fantasia
A razão das minhas queixas
Não digas que é fantasia
A razão das minhas queixas
Só andas enciumado
Quando eu não te apareço
Mas se me tens a teu lado
Nem ciúmes te mereço!
Mas se me tens a teu lado
Nem ciúmes te mereço!
Anda o Sol na minha rua
Cada vez até mais tarde
Anda o Sol na minha rua
Cada vez até mais tarde
A ver se pergunta à Lua
A razão por que não arde
A ver se pergunta à Lua
A razão por que não arde
The lyrics to "Anda O Sol Na Minha Rua" by Amália Rodrigues describe the sun, which seems to linger on the street longer every day. The singer wonders if perhaps the sun is staying longer in hopes of finding the moon and asking why it doesn't shine as brightly. The song continues with the singer asking her estranged lover why he follows her during the day but leaves her alone at night. She doubts his excuses and thinks he might be jealous of her. The song ends with the sun still lingering, seemingly searching for answers.
The lyrics are open to interpretation, but they could be seen as a metaphor for the singer's own longing for love and the man's jealousy causing issues in their relationship. The sun and moon metaphor could be interpreted as the singer and her lover, with the sun representing the singer and the moon representing the lover who doesn't shine as brightly as she does. The singer wonders why he is jealous when she's not around, but doesn't seem to care when she is near him.
Line by Line Meaning
Anda o Sol na minha rua
The sun walks on my street
Cada vez até mais tarde
Each time later
A ver se pergunta à Lua
To see if it asks the Moon
A razão por que não arde
The reason why it doesn't burn
Tanto quer saber por quê
So much it wants to know why
Mas depois fica calado
But then it stays quiet
E nunca ninguém os vê
And no one ever sees them
Andarem de braço dado
Walking arm in arm
Se me persegues de dia
If you chase me during the day
Se à noite sempre me deixas
If you always leave me at night
Não digas que é fantasia
Don't say it's a fantasy
A razão das minhas queixas
The reason for my complaints
Só andas enciumado
You're just jealous
Quando eu não te apareço
When I don't show up
Mas se me tens a teu lado
But if you have me by your side
Nem ciúmes te mereço!
I don't even deserve jealousy!
Anda o Sol na minha rua
The sun walks on my street
Cada vez até mais tarde
Each time later
A ver se pergunta à Lua
To see if it asks the Moon
A razão por que não arde
The reason why it doesn't burn
Writer(s): David Mourao-ferreira, Jose Fones Rocha
Contributed by Eva W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Célia Maria
Nunca me canso de ouvi-la. Todo dia, ouço suas cançoes.
Alicia Diaz
Célia Maria AMÁLIA ACONTECE...... FOI DEUS...
Alicia Diaz
Célia Maria é o CORAÇAÕ que fala
Célia Maria
Alicia Diaz . Qdo comecei a ouvir Amália sentia-me inquieta. depois entendi que ela mexe com nossas emoções.
Alicia Diaz
Célia Maria Amália é fadista....más também canta cançoēs....é sempre con o CORAÇAÕ..... é INESQUECIVEL NÃO É?
Eurico Manuel
Anda o Sol na minha rua foi a primeira mini telenovela com Amália, Elbvira Velez e Virgílio Teixeira
pena que aRTP não fizesse gravações nessa época.
Já estão os três quem sabe cantando o fado
...
Maria Haswell
Amalia ha e sempre ouve so 1 ! O espirito a alma do povo portugues !
Alicia Diaz
Maria Haswell é bem assim.
Jesus Jesus
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😎