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.
Portugal: Que Deus Me Perdoe
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Se pudesse mostrar
E o que eu sofro calada
Se pudesse contar
Toda a gente veria
Quanto sou desgraçada
Quanto finjo alegria
Quanto choro a cantar
Que Deus me perdoe
Se é crime ou pecado
Mas eu sou assim
E fugindo ao fado
Fugia de mim
Cantando dou brado
E nada me dói
Se é pois um pecado
Ter amor ao fado
Que Deus me perdoe
Quanto canto não penso
No que a vida é de má
Nem sequer me pertenço
Nem o mal se me da
Chego a querer a verdade
E a sonhar sonho imenso
Que tudo é felicidade
E tristeza não há
The lyrics of the song "Que Deus me perdoe" by Amália Rodrigues express the inner turmoil and sadness of the singer in a powerful way. The opening verses reveal the deep emotional pain that the singer carries within her. She wishes that her soul could express the burden that she bears silently, and that she could share her sorrows with others. The singer then admits that if people saw her true emotions, they would understand just how unhappy and miserable she is. She feigns happiness and joy, but deep down, she is crying while singing.
The chorus then kicks in, with the singer begging for God's forgiveness for the sinful way she feels about the fado, Portugal's traditional style of music. She feels guilty for feeling such a deep love for it, and she escapes her sadness and pain by singing the songs with all her heart. Eventually, the song explores the theme of escapism, as the singer admits that when she sings, she doesn't think about how horrible life can be, and she forgets about the things that cause her pain. This is a common theme in fado music, where the singers often sing about saudade, or the feeling of longing and melancholy for something that is unattainable.
Overall, the song "Que Deus me perdoe" is a deeply personal exploration of the pain and suffering that the singer is experiencing. It represents an expression of the Portuguese soul, where the people often hide their emotions and appear strong, while secretly carrying the weight of their sorrows.
Line by Line Meaning
Se a minha alma fechada
If my closed-off soul
Se pudesse mostrar
Could show itself
E o que eu sofro calada
And the suffering I bear in silence
Se pudesse contar
If I were able to express it
Toda a gente veria
Everyone would see
Quanto sou desgraçada
Just how miserable I am
Quanto finjo alegria
How much happiness I pretend
Quanto choro a cantar
And how much I cry while I sing
Que Deus me perdoe
May God forgive me
Se é crime ou pecado
If it's a crime or a sin
Mas eu sou assim
But that's just how I am
E fugindo ao fado
Trying to escape fate
Fugia de mim
I'd be running from myself
Cantando dou brado
Singing loud and clear
E nada me dói
And nothing hurts me
Se é pois um pecado
So if it's a sin
Ter amor ao fado
To love this kind of music
Que Deus me perdoe
May God forgive me
Quanto canto não penso
When I sing I don't think
No que a vida é de má
About how life can be cruel
Nem sequer me pertenço
I don't even feel like myself
Nem o mal se me da
I don't care about the bad things
Chego a querer a verdade
I even long for the truth
E a sonhar sonho imenso
And dream of great things
Que tudo é felicidade
Where everything is happiness
E tristeza não há
And there is no sorrow
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: FREDERICO VALERIO, JOAO DA SILVA TAVARES
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@tekafaceira8279
Simplesmente Lindo este Fado❤️
Lembro muito do meu paizinho cantando este Fado ❤️❤️
@aliciadiaz7732
A voz madura da nossa AMÁLIA É sublime...