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.

There Will Never Be Another You
Caetano Veloso Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

there will be many other nights like this
and i'll be standing here with someone new
there will be other songs to sing
another fall... another spring...
but there will never be another you
there will be other lips that i may kiss
but they won't thrill me
like yours used to do

yes, i may dream a million dreams
but how can they come true
if there will never, ever be another you?
there will be many other nigths like this
and i'll be standing here with someone new
there will be other songs to sing
another fall... another spring...
but there will never be another you
there will be other lips that i may kiss
but they won't thrill me
like yours used to do
yes, i may dream a million dreams

but how can they come true
if there will never, ever be another you?

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Caetano Veloso's "There Will Never Be Another You" express the bittersweet feeling of moving on from a past love. The singer acknowledges that there will be other nights like the one he's experiencing, perhaps with a new partner. There will be other songs to sing, other seasons to come and go, but despite this, there will never be another person like the lover he's leaving behind. Though he may kiss other lips, they won't able to match the thrill he once received from the one he loved before. He may dream of other possibilities, but they can never come true without that one person.

The song's lyrics convey the pain of moving on and the realization that the love the singer experienced with the person he's leaving behind will never be replicated. The repetition of the verse and the soft melody emphasize this feeling, making the song a true emotional ballad. However, the song also contains a glimmer of hope that the singer will find someone else to love.

Line by Line Meaning

there will be many other nights like this
There will be other moments similar to this one.

and i'll be standing here with someone new
I'll be with a new person.

there will be other songs to sing
There will be other things to enjoy.

another fall... another spring...
Other seasons will come and go.

but there will never be another you
But you will always be unique.

there will be other lips that i may kiss
There will be other people to kiss.

but they won't thrill me
But they won't be as exciting.

like yours used to do
Like you did once.

yes, i may dream a million dreams
I may have many aspirations.

but how can they come true
But they can't come true.

if there will never, ever be another you?
If there won't be anyone else quite like you?