Francisco Buarque de Hollanda, better know as Chico Buarque, is a Brazilian… Read Full Bio ↴Francisco Buarque de Hollanda, better know as Chico Buarque, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer, playwright, writer and poet. He is best known for his music, which often includes social, economic and cultural reflections on Brazil.

The firstborn son of Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda, Buarque lived at several locations throughout his childhood, though mostly in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Rome. He wrote and studied literature as a child and found music through the bossa nova compositions of Tom Jobim and João Gilberto. He performed as a singer and guitarist in the 1960s as well as writing a play that was deemed dangerous by the Brazilian military dictatorship of the time. Buarque, along with several Tropicalist and MPB musicians, was threatened by the Brazilian military government and eventually left Brazil for Italy in 1969. However, he came back to Brazil in 1970, and continued to record, perform, and write, though much of his material was suppressed by government censors. He released several more albums in the 1980s and published three novels in the 1990s and 2000s.

In 2019, Buarque was awarded the Camões Prize, the most important prize for literature in the Portuguese language.

Bolero Blues
Chico Buarque Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Quando eu ainda estava moço
Algum pressentimento
Me trazia volta e meia
Por aqui
Talvez à espera da garota
Que naquele tempo
Andava longe, muito longe
De existir

Tantos tristes fados eu compus
Quanto choro em vão,
bolero, blues
Eis que do nada ela aparece
Com o vestido ao vento
Já tão desejada
Que não cabe em si

Neste crucial momento
Neste cruzamento
Se ela olhar para trás
É bem capaz de num lamento
Acudir ao meu olhar mendigo
Mas aquela ingrata corre
E a Barão da Torre e a
Vinicius de Moraes
São de repente estranhas ruas
Sem o seu vestido ficam nuas
E ao vento eu digo
- tarde demais

Quando ela já não mais garota
Der a meia-volta

Claro que não vou
estar mais nem aí

Overall Meaning

In Bolero Blues, Chico Buarque talks about a young man who, through some sort of premonition, keeps coming back to a particular place, perhaps waiting for the girl who he knows will someday appear. He has composed many sad songs, crying in vain, waiting for her to come. Suddenly, she appears, free and desirable, but she runs away, leaving the young man behind. At this moment, the young man realizes that he might never have the chance to be with her again, and all he can do is look at her as she gets further away. He speaks of the streets of Barão da Torre and Vinicius de Moraes becoming strange and naked without her dress; and in the end, he tells us that when she is no longer a girl and looks back, he will no longer care.

The song talks about unrequited love and the idea that sometimes love only comes once in a lifetime. The singer, haunted by a premonition, waits for the girl to arrive, builds his dreams and songs around her, but she comes and goes without looking back. The lyrics are melancholic and with a sense of resignation, while the music has a dramatic bolero style, adding to the emotional intensity of the song.

Line by Line Meaning

Quando eu ainda estava moço
When I was still young and inexperienced

Algum pressentimento
A feeling of anticipation

Me trazia volta e meia
Brought me back from time to time

Por aqui
To this place

Talvez à espera da garota
Perhaps waiting for the girl

Que naquele tempo
Who at that time

Andava longe, muito longe
Was far away, very far away

De existir
From existing

Tantos tristes fados eu compus
I composed so many sad fates

Quanto choro em vão, bolero, blues
As much as I cried in vain, bolero, blues

Eis que do nada ela aparece
Behold, out of nowhere she appears