Like most of III, that ingenious choice of cover is suffused with what the Brazilians call saudade, a word that defies literal translation but signifies a bittersweet sense of longing. Saudade gives even the breeziest bossa nova melodies a tinge of melancholy and makes them all the more entrancing. All of the tracks here have smart, sing-along arrangements that will draw you in and undercurrents of wistful feeling that will keep you listening raptly for a long time to come. III, you will discover, is also an engrossing soundtrack to a very real story.
In the fall of 2005, after touring North America with their live band-mates, bassist Mikey Onufrak and drummer Mark Robohm, Juju and Chris decided to escape the approaching New York City winter to spend quality time in the places that had inspired their music. Keyboardist Jon, in demand as an engineer-mixer, stayed behind at his studio. The group had already cut almost an album’s worth of tunes, but felt they weren’t ready to release anything yet. First stop was the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. (Check out Juju and Chris’s photos at www.mosquitosnyc.com.) There they witnessed the November Day of the Dead events. As Juju recalls, “It was a beautiful experience. By celebrating death, everyone was really celebrating life. It was a time to talk to the ones who’d left this world.” Juju wept when she left Mexico, but had reason to be happy too: she and Chris were going to see her family in Rio. That’s where the Mosquitos’ sound was created, in a studio/shack near Ipanema, the setting for the group’s oft-licensed tune, “Boombox.”
Back in Rio, Juju hung out a lot with her mom, Anna Morato, a dressmaker. Anna not only supported Juju’s career, she designed her daughter’s stage outfits, which matched in color, fabric and cut the vivacity of the Mosquitos’ music. Three weeks into Juju’s visit, “after a great sushi dinner where we drank caipirinhas and laughed a lot,” Juju explains, her mother, a relatively young woman who’d experienced a few fainting spells earlier that month, suddenly passed away. “The world became a completely different and surreal place for me on the days following her death,” Juju says, “ full of rich life and deep love and sadness mixed together everywhere. When we got back to New York City a little over a month later, I felt that my mother had come with me.”
An acceptance of fate’s role in one’s life is another aspect of saudade; Juju and Chris felt that destiny had sent them on their journey to South America. The songs they wrote or reworked from those earlier sessions became a sort of diary of the joy and sadness, highs and lows, of the previous months. As Chris put it, “We wanted the music to continue to grow the same way we were growing, as a band and as people. We spent more time and thought nurturing the sounds, the vocal performances, the ideas behind the songs.”
Mosquitos’ work has always been partly autobiographical. Their debut disc cheerfully chronicled Chris’ wooing of Juju across two hemispheres. The material on III is personal in a deeper way, though knowledge of the back-story is not a prerequisite to appreciating these tunes. Songs like “Ele” have the same sort of easy-going bossa nova groove as “Boombox” and “Sunshine Barato”; “Mama’s Belly” accelerates that groove and adds a kooky speed-jazz guitar solo from Mikey, switching from bass. “Soap” is early-sixties pop balladry a la “A Summer Place,” with roller-rink organ and record-album scratches, designed specifically for dancing close and slow. “Just A Touch” channels the Lovin’ Spoonful’s cheerful jug-band sound and even features a kazoo solo.
As Juju learned in Mexico, sometimes the best way to deal with the most difficult moments is to celebrate our most treasured ones. III is a celebration of life, love, sex, music, ephemeral pleasures and enduring feelings. It’s guaranteed to warm your heart throughout our chilliest seasons.
-- Michael Hill
Shooting Stars
Mosquitos Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
E agora, fortes correntes.
Você e seus sonhos, suas luas, oceanos.
Shooting stars in my dreams
And we're flying together.
Shooting stars in my dreams
And we're flying forever.
Way high up there, shooting stars.
And now, my dear, we're heading for Mars.
It's you and your dreams, your moons, greater streams.
The first verse of Mosquitos' "Shooting Stars" in Portuguese talks about shooting stars and strong currents, which could be a metaphor for the randomness and unpredictability of life. The next line refers to "you and your dreams, your moons, and oceans," which could represent someone's aspirations and desires. The singer seems to be observing this person who is carried away by their dreams and ambitions, swept up in the tide of life's uncertainties.
The chorus of the song repeats the phrase "shooting stars in my dreams," which could mean that the singer is dreaming of a kind of unreachable, fantastical goal that is represented by the shooting stars. They feel like they are flying with this vision, almost as if they are in a different world entirely. The phrase "flying forever" reinforces the idea that this dream is something that could last for infinity, never really ending.
In the second verse, the shooting stars are even higher up, and the singer is now heading towards Mars with their companion. The phrase "greater streams" may refer to some kind of universal connection that the singer feels to the world, living beings, or the cosmos. Together, they seem to be slipping the bonds of reality as they continue to chase their dreams.
Line by Line Meaning
Lá fora, estrelas cadentes.
Shooting stars in my dreams
E agora, fortes correntes.
And we're flying together.
Você e seus sonhos, suas luas, oceanos.
It's you and your dreams, your moons, greater streams.
Shooting stars in my dreams
Shooting stars in my dreams
And we're flying forever.
And we're flying forever.
Way high up there, shooting stars.
Way high up there, shooting stars.
And now, my dear, we're heading for Mars.
And now, my dear, we're heading for Mars.
Lyrics © RESERVOIR MEDIA MANAGEMENT INC
Written by: ROOT, SMITH, STULBACH, WAGNER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind