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.
Grito
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Do silêncio faço um grito
O corpo todo me dói
Deixai-me chorar um pouco.
De sombra a sombra
Há um Céu, tão recolhido,
De sombra a sombra
Ao céu!
Aqui me falta a luz
Aqui me falta uma estrela
Chora-se mais
Quando se vive atrás dela.
E eu,
A quem o sol esqueceu
Sou a que o mundo perdeu
Só choro agora
Que quem morre já não chora.
Solidão!
Que nem mesmo essa é inteira,
Há sempre uma companheira
Uma profunda amargura.
Ai, solidão
Quem fora escorpião
Ai! solidão
E se mordera a cabeça!
Adeus
Já fui para além da vida
Do que já fui tenho sede
Sou sombra triste
Encostada a uma parede.
Adeus,
Vida que tanto duras
Vem morte que tanto tardas
Ai, como dói
A solidão quase loucura.
The song "Grito" by Amália Rodrigues is a melancholic and moving lament about the pain of loneliness and the longing for connection in life. The first verse, "Silêncio! Do silêncio faço um grito/O corpo todo me dói/Deixai-me chorar um pouco," translates to "Silence! From silence I make a scream/My whole body hurts/Let me cry a bit." The singer is in immense emotional pain and wants to let out their despair through their cry. The second verse describes a sky that seems far away and without any light or guiding stars, and how much more one cries when they feel they are living behind the unreachable stars. The third verse expresses a deep loneliness for companionship and how even loneliness isn't fully complete, "Ai, solidão/Quem fora escorpião/Ai! solidão/E se mordera a cabeça!" or "Oh, loneliness/Who would be a scorpion/Oh! loneliness/And bite its own head!" The song ends with a goodbye to life and a plea for death to come, as the pain of loneliness feels unbearable.
Line by Line Meaning
Silêncio!
Be quiet!
Do silêncio faço um grito
From silence, I make a scream
O corpo todo me dói
My whole body hurts
Deixai-me chorar um pouco.
Let me cry for a little while.
De sombra a sombra
From shadow to shadow
Há um Céu, tão recolhido,
There's a shy sky,
De sombra a sombra
From shadow to shadow
Já lhe perdi o sentido.
I've lost its meaning.
Ao céu!
To the sky!
Aqui me falta a luz
Here I lack light
Aqui me falta uma estrela
Here I lack a star
Chora-se mais
One cries more
Quando se vive atrás dela.
When living behind it.
E eu,
And I,
A quem o sol esqueceu
Whom the sun forgot
Sou a que o mundo perdeu
I'm the one whom the world lost
Só choro agora
I only cry now
Que quem morre já não chora.
Because those who die don't cry anymore.
Solidão!
Loneliness!
Que nem mesmo essa é inteira,
Which is not even complete,
Há sempre uma companheira
There's always a companion
Uma profunda amargura.
A deep bitterness.
Ai, solidão
Oh, loneliness
Quem fora escorpião
Who wish I was a scorpion
Ai! solidão
Oh, loneliness
E se mordera a cabeça!
And I could bite my head
Adeus
Goodbye
Já fui para além da vida
I'm already beyond life
Do que já fui tenho sede
Of what I once had, I'm thirsty
Sou sombra triste
I'm a sad shadow
Encostada a uma parede.
Leaning against a wall.
Vida que tanto duras
Life that lasts so much
Vem morte que tanto tardas
Come death that take so long
Ai, como dói
Oh, how it hurts
A solidão quase loucura.
The loneliness almost driving me crazy.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Alicia Diaz
Eu sou espanhola.estou a estudar português por causa d'amalia. 🌻❤️🇵🇹a minha gratidão. até SEMPRE.um beijinho ETERNO AMÁLIA 🌻❤️🇵🇹.
Fernão Dias
Alicia aprenda português com musica...é bem agradável………..ai vai uma boa classe de musica e português do melhor…………...……...…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzmElxZ3pNk&list=PLKFMklkr-7mhPf0t3eOZwD5_I3mquvhNb&index=2&t=0s.......…………… espero que goste…..obrigado
KMxStd
O sofrimento de Amália, tantas vezes incompreendido, maltratado e escarnecido, esconde nele o maior dos mistérios da sua voz: é que a voz de Amália é a voz do País, cujo sentimento, por natureza, é de melancolia, de um estado de alma governado pela Solidão. Por isso, nunca poderá existir outro Fadista como Amália, pois se os outros cantam e interpretam, a Amália expressava a Alma do País: era a Alma Cantada do País. Tal como Camões, os seus desgostos foram os desgostos do País! Até sempre...
Zeca Barbosa
Amália é uma personagem enigmática, de profundos sentimentos. E de uma voz inigualável.
Célia Maria
Linda Amália.Linda Voz. Músicas belíssimas. Sou fã dessa Diva. E olha que eu só fiquei conhecendo Amália Rodrigues a bem pouco tempo, mas já fiquei apaixonada. Parabéns ao povo português por ter um patrimônio tão belo.
Antonio Batista
Amália Portuguesa; a imortal voz deste país.Que honra a Amália ser de Portugal
Miló Hazeldine
Que palavras tão tristes, profundas e apropiadas, escritas pela a Amália e ouvidas no funeral dela. Meu Deus! Impressiona!
Silêncio é Canção
Eterna luz e brilho do fado!
fmc99
Minha Deusa uma das coisas mais belas de Portugal
Luís Murça
Divinal musa do fado português. Eterna Amália.