Cesária Évora (1941-2011) was a morna singa from Cape Verde. She was known… Read Full Bio ↴Cesária Évora (1941-2011) was a morna singa from Cape Verde. She was known as the "barefoot diva" because of her propensity to appear on stage in her bare feet in support of the homeless and poor women and children of her country.

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.

Historia De Un Amor
Cesária Évora Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Ya no estás más a mi lado, corazón.
En el alma sólo tengo soledad.
Y si ya no puedo verte,
¿Por qué Dios me hizo quererte
Para hacerme sufrir más?

Siempre fuiste la razón de mi existir.
Adorarte para mí fue religión,

Y en tus besos yo encontraba
El calor que me brindaba
El amor y la pasión.

Es la historia de un amor
Como no hay otra igual,
Que me hizo comprender
Todo el bien, todo el mal.
Que le dio luz a mi vida
Apagándola después.

Ay que noche tan obscura
Sin tu amor no viviré.

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Cesária Évora's song "Historia De Un Amor" speak of heartbreak and sadness. The singer is addressing an old love who is no longer with her, explaining the pain she feels and the loneliness that now occupies her soul. She questions why she was made to love this person if it only meant more suffering, but she cannot deny that their love was once the reason for her existence. She describes how worshipful she was of her lover and the passion that their kisses ignited within her. The chorus speaks to the uniqueness of this love, how it allowed her to experience both good and bad, and how it once brightened her life before extinguishing it completely.

Line by Line Meaning

Ya no estás más a mi lado, corazón.
You're no longer by my side, my heart.

En el alma sólo tengo soledad.
I'm left with nothing but loneliness in my soul.

Y si ya no puedo verte,
And if I can no longer see you,

¿Por qué Dios me hizo quererte
Why did God make me love you

Para hacerme sufrir más?
Only to cause me more pain?

Siempre fuiste la razón de mi existir.
You were always the reason for my existence.

Adorarte para mí fue religión,
Loving you was like a religion to me,

Y en tus besos yo encontraba
And in your kisses I found

El calor que me brindaba
The warmth that you gave me,

El amor y la pasión.
The love and passion.

Es la historia de un amor
This is the story of a love