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.
Lágrima
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
E com mais penas, com mais penas me levanto
No meu peito, já me ficou no meu peito
Este jeito, o jeito de te querer tanto
Desespero, tenho por meu desespero
Dentro de mim, dentro de mim o castigo
Não te quero, eu digo que não te quero
Se considero que um dia hei-de morrer
No desespero que tenho de te não ver
Estendo o meu xaile, estendo meu xaile no chão
Estendo o meu xaile, e deixo-me adormecer
Se eu soubesse, se eu soubesse que morrendo
Tu me havias, tu me havias de chorar
Por uma lágrima, por uma lágrima tua
Que alegria me deixaria matar
Uma lágrima, por uma lágrima tua
Que alegria me deixaria matar
The lyrics of "Lágrima" by Amália Rodrigues are full of intense emotion, longing, and despair. The beginning of the song sets the tone with lines that translate to "Full of sorrows, full of sorrows I lay down, and with more sorrows, with more sorrows I get up." The singer is clearly weighed down by their feelings, feelings that have become a part of them. They can't help but want something or someone that they know they can't have. The lyrics express the inner turmoil of this unrequited love and the relentless pain that comes with it.
The second stanza of the song delves deeper into this desperation, with lines that translate to "Despair, I have for my despair, inside me, inside me it's punishment. I say I don't want you, and yet at night, at night, I dream of you." The singer is trapped in a cycle of wanting and denying themselves what they want. They know it's not good for them, but they can't stop thinking about it. The final stanza is perhaps the most poignant, with lines that translate to "If I knew, if I knew that when I die, you would cry for me, for a tear, for a tear of yours, what joy it would bring me to die." The singer is willing to die for just a single tear from the one they love, even though they know that love will never be returned.
Overall, "Lágrima" is a beautifully written and deeply poignant song that speaks to anyone who has experienced the pain of unrequited love. Its themes of longing, desperation, and despair are universal and timeless.
Line by Line Meaning
Cheia de penas, cheia de penas me deito
I go to bed full of sorrow
E com mais penas, com mais penas me levanto
And when I wake up, I feel even more sorrow
No meu peito, já me ficou no meu peito
In my heart, I carry
Este jeito, o jeito de te querer tanto
This way, of loving you so much
Desespero, tenho por meu desespero
Despair, I have for my despair
Dentro de mim, dentro de mim o castigo
Inside of me, the punishment
Não te quero, eu digo que não te quero
I say I don't want you
E de noite, de noite sonho contigo
And at night, I dream of you
Se considero que um dia hei-de morrer
If I consider that one day I will die
No desespero que tenho de te não ver
In the despair I feel not seeing you
Estendo o meu xaile, estendo meu xaile no chão
I spread out my shawl, laying it on the ground
Estendo o meu xaile, e deixo-me adormecer
I spread out my shawl and let myself fall asleep
Se eu soubesse, se eu soubesse que morrendo
If I knew, if I knew that when I die
Tu me havias, tu me havias de chorar
You will cry for me
Por uma lágrima, por uma lágrima tua
For one tear, for one of your tears
Que alegria me deixaria matar
What joy I would feel to die
Uma lágrima, por uma lágrima tua
One tear, one of your tears
Que alegria me deixaria matar
What joy I would feel to die
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: AMALIA RODRIGUES, CARLOS GONCLAVES
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Alexandre Meireles
Amália, é sem duvida um património da Humanidade.
Gaspajo
Em certos momentos tenho que me esforçar para controlar o choro que tenta impulsivamente sair. Há muito boas cantoras de fado, mas fadistas nem por isso. Não está só na força da voz, mas sim no sentimento que a acompanha. Fantástica interpretação.
Ray Theron
também não sou português, mas morreu nos Açores durante dois anos, é fico ainda com muitas grandes saudades da ilha São Miguel e do povo açorense..
BreakCards
É pena a Amália não ter cantado esta canção no seu auge. Só a sua voz pode fazer jus a esta melodia,pela maneira como ela sente e interpreta vê-se q é vivido este poema. Mas q inspiração para este poema! Obrigado quando ouvi pela 1°vez nem sei descrever o q senti!
maria de lourdes Sampaio
Lágrima...... que inspiração ela teve ao fazer este poema! Sempre "Viva". Amália será sempre eterna! Maria de Lourdes Fadista
Oscar Carretero Almarcha
Que maravilla el fado de nuestros vecinos portugueses. Un abrazo hermanos!
AntónioM.G. Cunha
Sem dúvida!Não sei o que sinto de Maravilhoso dentro de mim,quando ouço a TUA encantadora VOZ.
Vanda de Freitas Bezerra
Não consigo expressar bem o que sinto ao ouvir essa música... uma nostalgia me invade e me transporta não sei pra onde... É simplesmente fascinante!!! Parabéns pela postagem de tão lindo vídeo!
Miguel lima
ESTA VOZ É A VOZ DE PORTUGAL, NÃO CONHEÇO MAIS NINGUEM QUE NOS ENTRE ASSIM NA ALMA....
miradomex
Hijole en verdad que qué canción, es una de mis favoritas de tantas favoritas que tengo de Amalia! Felicidades Portugal por tener una cantante como ella!!!! Saludos desde México