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.
Medo
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Quem dorme à noite comigo
É meu segredo, é meu segredo
Mas se insistirem lhes digo
Mas se insistirem lhes digo
O medo mora comigo
O medo mora comigo
Mas só o medo, mas só o medo
E cedo porque me embala
E cedo porque me embala
Num vai e vem de solidão
É com silêncio que fala
É com silêncio que fala
Com voz de móvel que estala
E nos perturba a razão
E nos perturba a razão
Gritar quem pode salvar-me
Gritar quem pode salvar-me
Do que está dentro de mim
Gostava até de matar-me
Gostava até de matar-me
Mas eu sei que ele há de esperar-me
Ao pé da ponte do fim
Ao pé da ponte do fim
"Medo" is a song sung by the renowned Portuguese fado singer Amália Rodrigues. The song speaks about her constant companion, her fear, and her struggles with it. She reflects on the idea of having secrets, even from those closest to her. She sings that her secret is her fear, which resides within her. She is afraid of what her fear will do to her, and despite her efforts to drown it out or escape it, it is always there.
The song speaks to the idea of being alone, even when one is not alone. Amália sings about how her fear comforted her, as it was the only constant in her life. Her fear has taken up residence with her, and she can never escape it. As she tosses and turns in her sleep, she feels as though she is being rocked back and forth by loneliness.
Despite the overwhelming presence of her fear, Amália reflects on how she wants to escape it. She contemplates ending her life, but deep down she knows that her fear would always be waiting for her. She describes it as a shadow waiting at the end of the bridge, ready to pull her back down. The song is a poignant portrayal of the psychological struggles that people often face and is relatable to many people who have gone through similar experiences.
Line by Line Meaning
Quem dorme à noite comigo
I keep secret the person sleeping with me at night.
Quem dorme à noite comigo
I keep secret the person sleeping with me at night.
É meu segredo, é meu segredo
This secret is only mine.
Mas se insistirem lhes digo
If you insist, I'll tell you.
O medo mora comigo
But the thing hiding with me is fear.
O medo mora comigo
But the thing hiding with me is fear.
Mas só o medo, mas só o medo
But it's just fear, nothing else.
E cedo porque me embala
Fear rocks me to sleep.
E cedo porque me embala
Fear rocks me to sleep.
Num vai e vem de solidão
In a back and forth of loneliness.
É com silêncio que fala
It speaks with silence.
É com silêncio que fala
It speaks with silence.
Com voz de móvel que estala
With a voice like creaking furniture.
E nos perturba a razão
And disturbs our minds.
Gritar quem pode salvar-me
Who can save me by shouting?
Do que está dentro de mim
From what's inside of me.
Gostava até de matar-me
I even wish to kill myself.
Gostava até de matar-me
I even wish to kill myself.
Mas eu sei que ele há de esperar-me
But I know it will wait for me.
Ao pé da ponte do fim
At the edge of the bridge of the end.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Reinaldo Ferreira
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@camelozen
E nos deixou esse tesouro de belas interpretações... Gratidão Amália ❤
@andreanicolodecandia1201
Every song I discover from you is one more reason to thank the universe, Amalia! ❤❤❤
@carolinecallu802
Qu elle est belle !magnifique !
@olgamarquesalves4888
Que voz tinha a nossa Amália. Fim. Obrigada por ter sido um bálsamo, para mim.
@aliciadiaz7732
E também para mim.. é um balsamo,para o coração a nossa AMÁLIA 🌻❤️🇵🇹
@alexandrecostaandre8018
Podem fazer mil versões, mil cover's... Inigualavél!
@anjo_patrick
Verdade amooooo sou Brasileiro mais essa mulher incrível.😍👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
@hfguerreiro4426
Verdadinha,sou Portuguesa e não consigo ouvir mais ninguém a cantar fado senão a nossa grande Amália 💟😢
@alexandrecostaandre8018
@Hf Guerreiro pois então está complicado, se nunca assistiu um espetáculo de fado, não vale a pena assistir, veja e ouça na net, rádio, cd, dvd, vinil... , a Amália já morreu; em carne e osso, se não a viu e ou vislumbrou e ouviu, já não o poderá fazer. Cumprimentos.
@aliciadiaz7732
A nossa AMÁLIA 🌻❤️🇵🇹 já não tem medo... está a voar pelo céu...