Born on the 27th August 1941 in the port town of Mindelo, Cape Verde, on the island of São Vicente. Long known as the queen of the morna, a soulful genre (related to the Portuguese fado) sung in Creole-Portuguese, she mixed her sentimental folk tunes filled with longing and sadness with the acoustic sounds of guitar, cavaquinho, violin, accordion, and clarinet. Évora's Cape Verdean blues often spoke of the country's history of isolation and slave trade, as well as emigration; almost two-thirds of the million Cape Verdeans alive live abroad.
Évora's voice, a finely-tuned, melancholy instrument with a touch of hoarseness, highlighted her emotional phrasing by accenting a word or phrase. Even audiences who do not understand her language could be held spell-bound by the emotions evident in her performances.
In 2004 she won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.
A heavy smoker for decades, Évora was diagnosed with heart problems in 2005. She suffered strokes in 2008 and in September 2011, when she announced she was retiring. She died at the age of seventy in São Vicente, Cape Verde on the 17th December 2011 from respiratory failure and hypertension. A Spanish newspaper reported that forty-eight hours before her death she was still receiving people in her home in Mindelo, popular for always having its doors open.
Beijo Roubado
Cesária Évora Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Embora seja de amor
É crime na terra, no céu é pecado
Mas o homem criminoso e pecador...
Para mim, está tudo errado
Beijo roubado tem mais calor
Quantos beijos eu ganhei do meu amor,
Mas nem um beijo
Foi mais beijo
Que o primeiro beijo
Que eu fingi negar, ele roubou.
Para mim, está tudo errado
Beijo roubado tem mais calor.
The lyrics of Cesária Évora's song "Beijo Roubado" speak to the paradoxical nature of a stolen kiss. The first two lines suggest that stealing a kiss, despite being an act of love, is a crime on earth and a sin in heaven. However, the song continues to assert that a stolen kiss is actually more powerful and meaningful than a freely given one. The singer asserts that she has received countless stolen kisses from her lover, and the intimacy of those moments cannot be measured. The final lines of the song suggest that the first time her lover stole a kiss from her was the most memorable and impactful.
It seems that the song is playing with the idea of the forbidden and the taboo. In some cultures, stealing a kiss is seen as a sign of affection and affectionate cunning. The song speaks to the power and intimacy of that moment, even if society condemns such behavior. Furthermore, the song may be suggesting that love itself is a form of rebellion, and that it is the moments of stolen intimacy that define its power and value.
Line by Line Meaning
Dizem que o beijo roubado
There is a saying that a stolen kiss...
Embora seja de amor
...although it may be out of love...
É crime na terra, no céu é pecado
...is considered a crime on earth but a sin in heaven...
Mas o homem criminoso e pecador...
...yet man is inherently a sinner and criminal...
Para mim, está tudo errado
...but for me, that's all wrong...
Beijo roubado tem mais calor
...a stolen kiss is more passionate...
Quantos beijos eu ganhei do meu amor,
...how many kisses I received from my love...
Eu não contei, nem ele contou
...I didn't count, neither did he...
Mas nem um beijo
...yet, not a single kiss...
Foi mais beijo
...was as much a kiss...
Que o primeiro beijo
...as the first kiss...
Que eu fingi negar, ele roubou.
...that I pretended to refuse, but he stole anyway.
Para mim, está tudo errado
...for me, that's all wrong...
Beijo roubado tem mais calor.
...a stolen kiss is more passionate.
Contributed by Gianna N. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Julio Fernando San Martín
¡GRANDE! JAMÁS TE HAS IDO DIOSA DE ÉBANO DESCALZA