Caetano Emanoel Viana Teles Veloso (born August 7, 1942 in Santo Amaro, Bah… Read Full Bio ↴Caetano Emanoel Viana Teles Veloso (born August 7, 1942 in Santo Amaro, Bahia, Brazil), professionally known as Caetano Veloso, is a singer, composer, musician, producer, arranger, writer and political activist, being one of the most popular and influential Brazilian MPB artists of all time. With a career that exceeds five decades, Caetano has built a musical work marked by renewal and widely considered to possess great intellectual and poetic value.

Veloso is the fifth of the seven children born to José Telles Veloso ("Seu Zezinho") and Claudionor Vianna Telles Veloso ("Dona Canô"). His younger sister Maria Bethânia, another popular and renowned artist in Brazil, preceded him to fame as a singer in the mid-1960s. He began his career around 1965 singing bossa nova and he has cited his greatest musical influences from his early period as João Gilberto and Dorival Caymmi. (João Gilberto would say later about Caetano's contribution that it added an intellectual dimension to brazilian popular music.) But with such musical collaborators Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Tom Zé, Chico Buarque, and Os Mutantes, and greatly influenced by the later work of The Beatles, developed tropicalismo, which fused Brazilian pop with rock and roll and avant garde art music resulting in a more international, psychedelic, and socially aware sound. Veloso's politically active stance, unapologetically leftist, earned him the enmity of Brazil's military dictatorship which ruled until 1985; his songs were frequently censored, and some were banned. Veloso was also alienated from the socialist left in Brazil becasue of his acceptance and integration of non-nationalist influences (like rock and roll) in his music. Veloso and Gilberto Gil spent several months in jail for "anti-government activity" in 1968 and eventually exiled themselves to London. Caetano Veloso's work upon his return in 1972 was often characterized by frequent appropriations not only of international styles, but of half-forgotten Brazilian folkloric styles and rhythms as well. In particular, his celebration of the Afro-Brazilian culture of Bahia can be seen as the precursor of such Afro-centric groups as Timbalada.

In the 1980s, Veloso's popularity outside Brazil grew, especially in Israel, Portugal, France and Africa. By 2004, he was one of the most respected and prolific international pop stars, with more than fifty recordings available, including songs in soundtracks of movies such as Pedro Almodovar's Hable con Ella (Talk to Her), and Frida. In 2002 Veloso published an account of his early years and the Tropicalia movement, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil.

His first all-English CD was A Foreign Sound (2004), which covers Nirvana's "Come as You Are" and compositions from the Great American Songbook. Five of the six songs on his third eponymous album, released in 1971, were also in English.

Circuladô de Fulô
Caetano Veloso Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

circuladô de fulô ao deus ao demodará que deus te guie
porque eu não posso guiá eviva quem já me deu circuladô de
fulô e ainda quem falta me dá
soando como um shamisen e feito apenas com um arame
tenso um cabo e uma lata velha num fim de festafeira no
pino do sol a pino mas para outros não existia aquela música
não podia porque não podia popular aquela música se não
canta não é popular se não afina não tintina não tarantina e

no entanto puxada na tripa da miséria na tripa tensa da mais
megera miséria física e doendo doendo como um prego
na palma da mão um ferrugem prego cego na
palma espalma da mão coração exposto como um nervo
tenso retenso um renegro prego cego durando na palma
polpa da mão ao sol
circuladô de fulô ao deus ao demodará que deus te guie
porque eu não posso guiá eviva quem já me deu
circuladô de fulô e ainda quem falta me dá
o povo é o inventalínguas na malícia da maestria no matreiro
da maravilha no visgo do improviso tenteando a travessia
azeitava o eixo do sol
circuladô de fulô ao deus ao demodará que deus te guie
porque eu não posso guiá eviva quem já me deu
circuladô de fulô e ainda quem falta me dá
e não peça que eu te guie não peça despeça que eu te guie
desguie que eu te peça promessa que eu te fie me deixe
me esqueça me largue me desamargue que no fim eu acerto que
no fim eu reverto que no fim eu conserto e para o fim me
reservo e se verá que estou certo e se verá que tem jeito e se
verá que está feito que pelo torto fiz direito que quem faz
cesto faz cento se não guio não lamento pois o mestre que
me ensinou já não dá ensinamento

circuladô de fulô ao deus ao demodará que deus te guie
porque eu não posso guiá eviva quem já me deu

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Caetano Veloso's song "Circuladô de Fulô" are a celebration of popular music, improvisation, and the power of the people. The song starts with the invocation "circuladô de fulô ao deus ao demo" which means "circulator of flowers to God and the devil", indicating that it is a song for everyone, regardless of their beliefs. The main refrain of the song is "que deus te guie porque eu não posso guiar" which means "let God guide you because I cannot". This can be interpreted as a humbling recognition of the limits of the artist's power and an invitation for divine inspiration to guide the music.

The song describes a particular musical performance that took place "num fim de festa/feira no pino do sol" (at the end of a party/fair at high noon) where the music was played on a makeshift instrument made of a wire, a handle, and an old can. The music was so powerful that it seemed to avert the laws of physics: "soando como um shamisen" (sounding like a shamisen, a Japanese instrument), "no entanto puxada na tripa da miséria na tripa tensa da mais megera miséria física" (yet pulled from the guts of poverty, from the tense bowels of the meanest physical poverty). This describes the magic of popular music, how it can transform the most humble and basic materials into something beautiful and inspiring.

The song continues to praise the creativity and ingenuity of the people who invent their own language and expressions, who improvise and make the best out of their difficult lives. The lyrics also include a play on words with the phrases "peça que eu te guie" (ask me to guide you) and "despeça que eu te guie" (say goodbye so I can guide you), which suggests that sometimes the best way to lead is by letting go, by allowing people to find their own way.

Overall, "Circuladô de Fulô" is a powerful hymn to popular music, to the creativity and resilience of the people, and to the humility of the artist in recognizing that sometimes the best way to create is by surrendering to something bigger than oneself.

Line by Line Meaning

circuladô de fulô ao deus ao demodará que deus te guie
May God guide you, my circle of flowers, for I cannot guide you myself

porque eu não posso guiá
Because I am unable to guide you

eviva quem já me deu circuladô de fulô e ainda quem falta me dá
Long live those who have given me this circle of flowers, and may those who have yet to do so also give me one

soando como um shamisen e feito apenas com um arame
Sounding like a shamisen and made with just one wire

tenso um cabo e uma lata velha num fim de festafeira no pino do sol a pino mas para outros não existia aquela música
Tight, with just a wire, a rope, and an old can, played at a festival's end in the heat of the day, but to some, the music did not exist

não podia porque não podia popular aquela música se não canta não é popular se não afina não tintina não tarantina
It could not become popular because it could not be sung, and if it was not in tune, it could not ring or dance

e no entanto puxada na tripa da miséria na tripa tensa da mais megera miséria física e doendo doendo como um prego na palma da mão um ferrugem prego cego na palma espalma da mão coração exposto como um nervo tenso retenso um renegro prego cego durando na palma polpa da mão ao sol
Yet it was pulled from the gut of poverty, from the tense guts of the most wicked physical misery, and hurt like a nail in the palm of the hand, a rusty, blind nail in the palm spread open like a tense nerve, a blackened nail blind, lasting on the sunlit palm of the hand

o povo é o inventalínguas na malícia da maestria no matreiro da maravilha no visgo do improviso tenteando a travessia azeitava o eixo do sol
The people are the inventors of language, with the cunning of mastery and the ingenuity of wonder and the stickiness of improvisation, attempting to cross over and oiling the axis of the sun

e não peça que eu te guie não peça despeça que eu te guie desguie que eu te peça promessa que eu te fie me deixe me esqueça me largue me desamargue que no fim eu acerto que no fim eu reverto que no fim eu conserto e para o fim me reservo e se verá que estou certo e se verá que tem jeito e se verá que está feito que pelo torto fiz direito que quem faz cesto faz cento se não guio não lamento pois o mestre que me ensinou já não dá ensinamento
And do not ask me to lead you, do not bid farewell, ask me to unlead you, trust my promise, forget me, leave me, un-bitter me, for in the end I will be right, I will reinvent, I will fix, and reserve for the end, and it will be seen that I am right, that there is a way, that it is done, that I made the right out of the wrong, for those who make a basket make a hundred, and if I don't lead, I don't regret, for the master who taught me no longer teaches

Contributed by Sebastian O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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