Cristina Branco was born in December, 1972, in Almeirim, Ribatejo, Portugal… Read Full Bio ↴Cristina Branco was born in December, 1972, in Almeirim, Ribatejo, Portugal, where she still lives. Her music is deeply rooted in tradition, yet essentially modern.

She grew up far from the fado houses of Lisbon and nothing suggested that she was predestined for the fado. Like almost all young Portuguese born after the revolution of 1974, she was interested in folk music, jazz, blues, bossa nova but not in fado. She regarded it as a genre for a different generation. This lasted until her 18th birthday, when her grandfather gave her the album Rara e Inédita by Amália Rodrigues. Suddenly, Cristina Branco discovered all the emotions that the genre could offer in the close connections that arose among voice, poetry and music. The amateur singer - then studying communication sciences and still full of her ambition to become a journalist - began to develop her vocal technique and to take her new vocation seriously.
After that, Cristina studied the poems from which major fado lyrics are taken.
Since then, Cristina has worked on her fado repertory, accompanied by Custódio Castelo on guitar and as composer.

Halfway through the nineties, other young musicians also found a new means of expression in the fado and this contributed to a surprising renaissance. Just as they did, Cristina Branco began to make clear choices in which respect for the tradition went hand in hand with the desire for renewal.
There can be no doubt that Cristina Branco is developing her own style from a number of primary components. She employs a traditional group (voice, Portuguese guitar, guitar and bass guitar) and offers us concurrently a light, warm and experienced voice; she mixes the traditional fado with themes and folk songs that are personal favourites and seems always to choose the words of the best Portuguese, or even Dutch poets with discretion.

Fado louco
Cristina Branco Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

(Manuel D’Andrade)
Num fado louco e vazio
Tracei um caminho frio
Que meus passos palmilharam,
Andei por vales e montes
Bebi a água das fontes
Mas os meus lábios secaram.

Vão nos meus olhos cerrados,
Mundos lindos mas fechados
Sonhos de mentida ilusão
E os meus passos hesitantes
Vão perdidos mas distantes
Num trilho sombrio e vão

Louca fui, louca serei,
E tão louca que nem sei
Quanta loucura há em mim…
Este caminho sem Norte

É ânsia, poeira e morte,
Silêncio, saudade e fim

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of the song Fado louco by Cristina Branco are a lament about a lost and aimless life. The singer describes their journey through a "crazy and empty fado" (a fado is a traditional Portuguese style of music that typically features themes of loss and longing) that has led them down a cold path where they have wandered through valleys and mountains and drank from streams, but their lips remain dry. The singer's closed eyes hold beautiful but inaccessible worlds and illusory dreams. Their hesitant steps take them down a dark path where they are lost and distant.

The chorus, "Louca fui, louca serei, e tão louca que nem sei, quanta loucura há em mim" (I was crazy, I will be crazy, and so crazy that I don't even know how much madness is in me) highlights the intensity of the singer's feelings of disorientation, disillusionment, and despair. They feel like they have lost their sense of direction and purpose in life, and all they are left with is an overwhelming emptiness. The final two lines, "Este caminho sem Norte, é ânsia, poeira e morte, silêncio, saudade e fim" (this path without a North is anxiety, dust and death, silence, nostalgia, and end), paint a haunting picture of the desolate path that they find themselves on.

Line by Line Meaning

Num fado louco e vazio
In a crazy and empty fado (Portuguese music genre),

Tracei um caminho frio
I plotted a lonely path

Que meus passos palmilharam,
That my steps have walked upon

Andei por vales e montes
I walked through valleys and mountains

Bebi a água das fontes
I drank water from fountains

Mas os meus lábios secaram.
But my lips dried up.

Vão nos meus olhos cerrados,
In my closed eyes,

Mundos lindos mas fechados
Beautiful worlds are closed

Sonhos de mentida ilusão
Dreams of a false illusion

E os meus passos hesitantes
And my hesitant steps

Vão perdidos mas distantes
Are lost but far away