Sérgio Santos Mendes (born Niteroi, 11 February 1… Read Full Bio ↴See Sérgio Mendes.
Sérgio Santos Mendes (born Niteroi, 11 February 1941) is a Brazilian musician. Born the son of a physician in Niteroi, Brazil, Mendes attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late-1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was taking off. Mendes played with Antonio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor), and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.
Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderly and Herbie Mann and played Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records. When sales were tepid, he replaced his Brazilian born vocalist Wanda Sa with the distinctive voice of Chicago native Lani Hall (who learned Mendes' Portuguese material phonetically) and switched to Herb Alpert's A&M label and released Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66. (Hall would later marry Alpert). The album ultimately went platinum based largely upon the success of the single Mas Que Nada and the personal support of Alpert, with whom Mendes toured regularly. Though his early singles with Brasil '66 (most notably Mas Que Nada) met with some success, Mendes really burst into mainstream prominence when he performed the Oscar nominated Burt Bacharach/Hal David song "The Look of Love" on the Academy Awards telecast in March 1968. Brasil '66's version of the song quickly shot into the top 10, eclipsing Dusty Springfield's version from the soundtrack of the movie, and Mendes spent the rest of 1968 enjoying consecutive top 10 and top 20 hits with his follow-up singles, "The Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair." Though he continued to enjoy adult contemporary chart successes with Brasil '66 through 1971, he would not experience the mainstream chart hits he enjoyed in 1968 until his comeback album in 1983 generated the biggest single of his career, "Never Gonna Let You Go." However, from 1968 on, Mendes was arguably the biggest Brazilian star in the world, enjoying immense popularity worldwide and performing in venues as varied as stadium arenas and the White House, where he gave concerts for both President Johnson and President Nixon.
Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-70s, but he remained very popular in South America and Japan. (This disparity became a Seinfeld in-joke.) His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974, followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit, "The Real Thing." In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed huge success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums. He has released over thirty-five albums, and still plays his bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. His newest album, Timeless released in 2006, featured Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas, Q-Tip, Justin Timberlake, and Pharoahe Monch.
(Text taken in whole from the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Mendes on March 30, 2006)
If You Leave Me Now
Sergio Mendes Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
(Don't go, please don't go ...)
If you leave me now
You'll take away the biggest part of me
Ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh, no
Baby please don't go
And if you leave me now
You'll take away the very heart of me
Baby please don't go
A love like ours
Is love that's hard to find
How could we let it slip away?
We've come to far to leave it all behind
How could we end it all this way?
When tomorrow comes and we'll both
Regret things we said today
A love like ours
Is love that's hard to find
How could we let it slip away?
We've come to far
To leave it all behind
How could we end it all this way?
When tomorrow comes and we'll both
Regret things we said today
If you leave me now
You'll take away the biggest part of me
Ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh, no
Baby, please don't go
If you leave me now
Sérgio Mendes's If You Leave Me Now is a heartbreaking plea from a lover to their partner to not leave them. The song highlights the angst and helplessness of someone in love whose partner's decision could result in a lost sense of completeness. The lyrics convey the message that if the love of their life leaves them, they would take away the biggest part of them- their heart and soul. The repetition of the words, "ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh no," emphasizes the intense pain and the desperation of the situation. The singer makes a passionate plea because they don't want to lose what they have - an extraordinary and infrequent kind of love. The chorus underscores the worry that comes with a love that has gone off the rails and emphasizes that they have come too far in their relationship to let it end this way. The sentiment is built around the realization that the two might end up regretting their actions for a long time.
Line by Line Meaning
If you leave me now
The singer cannot bear to be left alone without their loved one
You'll take away the biggest part of me
The singer's loved one is the most important and valuable thing in their life
Baby please don't go
The singer is pleading with their loved one to stay with them
And if you leave me now
The artist is emphasizing the fact that they cannot handle the situation if their loved one leaves
You'll take away the very heart of me
The artist's loved one is not just important, but also essential to their existence
A love like ours
The singer's relationship is truly special and rare
Is love that's hard to find
Finding a love like theirs is a difficult task
How could we let it slip away?
The artist cannot understand how their relationship is ending or evolving in a different direction
We've come to far to leave it all behind
After all the time and effort they have put into their relationship, it would be a shame to let it fall apart
When tomorrow comes and we'll both
The artist is anticipating regret for the actions they take in the present
Regret things we said today
The singer knows that the things they say in the moment could be hurtful and could have long-lasting consequences
Contributed by Lily R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
david
on Waters of March (Les Eaux de Mars) - French Version
haaaaaaaaaaaaaa