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.

Onde Andaras
Caetano Veloso Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Onde andarás nesta tarde vazia
Tão clara e sem fim
Enquanto o mar bate azul em Ipanema
Em que bar, em que cinema te esqueces de mim
Enquanto o mar bate azul em Ipanema
Em que bar, em que cinema te esqueces…
Eu sei, meu endereço apagaste do teu coração
A cigarra do apartamento

O chão de cimento existem em vão
Não serve pra nada a escada, o elevador
Já não serve pra nada a janela
A cortina amarela, perdi meu amor
E é por isso que eu saio pra rua
Sem saber pra quê
Na esperança talvez de que o acaso
Por mero descaso me leve a você
Na esperança talvez de que o acaso

Por mero descaso
Me leve eu sei

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Caetano Veloso’s song Onde Andaras reflect the emotions of someone who is feeling lost and forgotten by a loved one. The opening lines set the scene of a clear, endless afternoon while the sound of the sea crashing onto Ipanema beach can be heard in the background. The singer wonders where their loved one could possibly be, in which bar or cinema, while they forget about the singer. This creates a sense of loneliness and rejection, with the singer feeling left behind and forgotten.

The following lines focus on the physical space surrounding the singer. They describe the apartment, the staircase, the elevator, and the window, visualizing an empty space and a sense of uselessness. The arrival of the refrain where the singer acknowledges that their loved one has erased their address from their heart reinforces this feeling of abandonment. The singer tries to find a way to connect again, leaving their apartment and hitting the streets, hoping that fate might lead them back to their loved one, despite feeling that it is a futile search.

Overall, the song explores the emotional side of a break-up, highlighting the sense of loss, loneliness, and confusion that one experiences while trying to cope with the end of a relationship.

Line by Line Meaning

Onde andarás nesta tarde vazia
Where will you be on this empty afternoon

Tão clara e sem fim
So clear and endless

Enquanto o mar bate azul em Ipanema
While the sea hits blue in Ipanema

Em que bar, em que cinema te esqueces de mim
In which bar, in which cinema do you forget about me

Eu sei, meu endereço apagaste do teu coração
I know, you erased my address from your heart

A cigarra do apartamento
The cicada in the apartment

O chão de cimento existem em vão
The cement floor exists in vain

Não serve pra nada a escada, o elevador
The stairs, the elevator are useless

Já não serve pra nada a janela
The window doesn't serve for anything anymore

A cortina amarela, perdi meu amor
The yellow curtain, I lost my love

E é por isso que eu saio pra rua
And that's why I go out on the street