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.

Eu E A Brisa
Caetano Veloso Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Ah, se a juventude que esta brisa canta
Ficasse aqui comigo mais um pouco
Eu poderia esquecer a dor
De ser tão só pra ser um sonho
Daí então quem sabe alguém chegasse
Buscando um sonho em forma de desejo
Felicidade então pra nós seria
E, depois que a tarde nos trouxesse a lua

Se o amor chegasse eu não resistiria
E a madrugada acalentaria a nossa paz
Fica, ó brisa fica pois talvez quem sabe
O inesperado faça uma surpresa
E traga alguém que queira te escutar
E junto a mim queira ficar
E junto a mim queira ficar

E junto a mim queira ficar
E junto a mim queira ficar

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Caetano Veloso's song Eu E A Brisa speak of a desire to hold onto youth, to find companionship, and to embrace the unexpected. The singer sings about how if only the youth, represented by the breeze that is singing, could stay with him a little longer, he could forget the pain of being alone and live in a dream-like state. He talks about the possibility of someone arriving, seeking a dream in the form of desire, and how that would bring happiness. “Felicidade então pra nós seria”- Happiness would be for us. He then imagines succumbing to love should it arrive, and finding peace in the early morning hours.

The repeated refrain urges the breeze to stay, as perhaps someone unexpected may arrive and want to stay with him. The overall tone is one of wistful hopefulness- longing for something, but being receptive to what may come.

Line by Line Meaning

Ah, se a juventude que esta brisa canta
Oh, if only the youth that this wind sings about

Ficasse aqui comigo mais um pouco
Would stay here with me for a little longer

Eu poderia esquecer a dor
I could forget the pain

De ser tão só pra ser um sonho
Of being so lonely to be nothing but a dream

Daí então quem sabe alguém chegasse
Then perhaps someone would come

Buscando um sonho em forma de desejo
Seeking a dream in the form of desire

Felicidade então pra nós seria
Happiness would then be ours

E, depois que a tarde nos trouxesse a lua
And, after the evening brought us the moon

Se o amor chegasse eu não resistiria
If love were to arrive, I wouldn't resist

E a madrugada acalentaria a nossa paz
And the early morning would comfort our peace

Fica, ó brisa fica pois talvez quem sabe
Stay, oh wind, stay because perhaps, who knows