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.

Deusa Urbana
Caetano Veloso Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Com você eu tenho medo de me apaixonar
Eu tenho medo de não me apaixonar
Tenho medo dele, tenho medo dela
Os dois juntos onde eu não podia entrar

Com você eu tenho mesmo que me conformar
Eu tenho mesmo que não me conformar
Sexo heterodoxo, lapsos de desejo

Quando vejo o céu desaba sobre nós

Mucosa roxa, peito cor de rola
Seu beijo, seu texto, seu queixo, seu pêlo
Sua coxa
Menina deusa urbana, neta do sol
Eu sou você e os meus rivais
Sou só

Mucosa roxa, peito cor de rola
Seu beijo, seu texto, seu cheiro, seu pêlo
'Cê toda
Menina deusa urbana, neta do sol

Eu sou você e os meus rivais
Sou só

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Caetano Veloso's song "Deusa Urbana" speak to the fear and confusion that can come with falling in love. The opening lines express a fear of both falling in love and not falling in love, indicating the singer's uncertainty about this person who they are with. They also mention a fear of "him" and "her" being together where the singer can't go, which could be interpreted as jealousy or insecurity about their partner's relationships with others.

The second verse contains references to a non-traditional sexual experience, with "heterodox sex" and "moments of desire" that make the singer feel like the sky is falling on them. The following lines describe physical attributes of their partner, including their purple mucous membranes and a bird-like chest, as well as their kiss, hair, and legs. The final lines of the song reiterate that the singer feels both connected to and isolated from their partner, who they describe as a "goddess of the city" and "grandchild of the sun." Overall, the lyrics speak to the intense, contradictory emotions that can come with being in love with someone who is both fearful and intoxicating.

Line by Line Meaning

Com você eu tenho medo de me apaixonar
I feel scared to fall in love with you

Eu tenho medo de não me apaixonar
I am also scared that I won't fall in love with you

Tenho medo dele, tenho medo dela
I'm scared of him, scared of her

Os dois juntos onde eu não podia entrar
Both of them are together in a place where I cannot enter

Com você eu tenho mesmo que me conformar
I must accept and conform with you

Eu tenho mesmo que não me conformar
At the same time, I must also resist conforming with you

Sexo heterodoxo, lapsos de desejo
Heterodox sexuality, fleeting desires

Quando vejo o céu desaba sobre nós
When I see you, it feels like the sky is falling on us

Mucosa roxa, peito cor de rola
Lilac mucous, chest like a rooster

Seu beijo, seu texto, seu queixo, seu pêlo
Your kiss, your text, your chin, your hair

Sua coxa
Your thigh