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.

Meu bem
Caetano Veloso Lyrics

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Você é meu caminho
Meu vinho, meu vício
Desde o início estava você

Meu bálsamo benigno
Meu signo, meu guru
Porto seguro onde eu vou ter

Meu mar e minha mãe
Meu medo e meu champanhe
Visão do espaço sideral

Onde o que eu sou se afoga
Meu fumo e minha ioga
Você é minha droga
Paixão e carnaval

Meu zen, meu bem, meu mal
Meu zen, meu bem, meu mal

Meu zen, meu bem

Você é meu caminho
Meu vinho, meu vício
Desde o início estava você

Meu bálsamo benigno
Meu signo, meu guru
Porto seguro onde eu vou ter

Meu mar e minha mãe
Meu medo e meu champanhe
Visão do espaço sideral

Onde o que eu sou se afoga
Meu fumo e minha ioga
Você é minha droga
Paixão e carnaval

Meu zen, meu bem, meu mal

Meu zen, meu bem, meu mal
Meu zen, meu bem, meu mal

Overall Meaning

In Caetano Veloso’s song “Meu bem,” he expresses the depth of his relationship with his lover. The lyrics in this sweet and heartfelt song communicate his lover's significance in his life, where he refers to her as his journey, wine, and addiction since the beginning of their time together. The first stanza “Você é meu caminho, Meu vinho, meu vício, Desde o início estava você” talks about his lover's importance as the way he follows in life, his comfort, and the addiction that he cannot let go of.

The second stanza begins with “Meu bálsamo benigno, Meu signo, meu guru, Porto seguro onde eu vou ter” which refers to the hope and support he gains from his partner in life. He sees her as the benign balm to soothe his fears, as his guiding star that points him in a better direction, and the only safe port where he can retreat when the world becomes too harsh. The third part of the second stanza talks about his lover being his motherly hero, his fear as well as his precious bubbly wine.

The third stanza is about the satisfaction, completion, and enlightenment Caetano Veloso feels when he is with his lover. He compares his lover to both the ocean and his motherly mother, as well as the outer limits of the universe, where Caetano finds peace in their presence. “Meu zen, meu bem, meu mal” means that his lover is his ultimate peaceful state of mind, the one he loves, but also the one that could break his heart, causing him unbearable pain.

Line by Line Meaning

Você é meu caminho
You are my path

Meu vinho, meu vício
My wine, my addiction

Desde o início estava você
You were there from the beginning

Meu bálsamo benigno
My benign balm

Meu signo, meu guru
My sign, my guru

Porto seguro onde eu vou ter
Safe harbor where I will have

Meu mar e minha mãe
My sea and my mother

Meu medo e meu champanhe
My fear and my champagne

Visão do espaço sideral
View of the sidereal space

Onde o que eu sou se afoga
Where what I am drowns

Meu fumo e minha ioga
My smoke and my yoga