See Sérgio Mendes.

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)

Trilhos urbanos
Sergio Mendes Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

O melhor o tempo esconde
Longe muito longe
Mas bem dentro aqui
Quando o bonde dava volta ali
No cais de Araújo Pinho
Tamarindeirinho
Nunca me esqueci
Onde o Imperador fez xixi

Cana doce, Santo Amaro
Gosto muito raro
Trago em mim por ti
E uma estrela sempre a luzir

Bonde da Trilhos Urbanos
Vão passando os anos
E eu não te perdi
Meu trabalho é te traduzir

Rua da Matriz ao Conde
No trolley ou no bonde
Tudo é bom de ver
São Popó do Maculelê
Mas aquela curva aberta
Aquela coisa certa
Não dá entender
O Apolo e o rio Subaé

Pena de pavão de Krishna
Maravilha, vixe Maria, mãe de Deus
Será que esses olhos são meus?

Cinema transcendental
Trilhos Urbanos

Gal cantando o Balancê
Como eu sei lembrar de você

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Sergio Mendes's song Trilhos Urbanos speak of nostalgia and the passing of time. The singer remembers his past experiences and how they have shaped him. He mentions that the best things in life are often hidden away and far off but reside within us. His memories are tied to specific places like the Araújo Pinho pier and the Tamarindeirinho neighborhood. The lyrics are very personal, mentioning something that's stuck in his memory forever - "onde o Imperador fez xixi" (where the Emperor peed). The singer then talks about the sweet taste of Santo Amaro's sugarcane and the constant presence of a shining star in the sky.

The song is very introspective, but the chorus - "Bonde da Trilhos Urbanos / Vão passando os anos / E eu não te perdi / Meu trabalho é te traduzir" (Trilhos Urbanos' tram / The years go by / And I haven't lost you / My job is to translate you) - brings the focus back to what the singer's real job is: to translate the memories he holds so dear to him.

The song is a beautiful tribute to the Trilhos Urbanos tram of Salvador, Brazil, that began operating in 1912 and has become an ingrained part of the city's culture. It's a symbol of a time that has since passed but lives on through the memories of those who rode it.

Line by Line Meaning

O melhor o tempo esconde
The best things are hidden with time

Longe muito longe
Far, very far away

Mas bem dentro aqui
But deep inside here

Quando o bonde dava volta ali
When the streetcar turned there

No cais de Araújo Pinho
By Araújo Pinho dock

Tamarindeirinho
Little tamarind tree

Nunca me esqueci
I never forgot

Onde o Imperador fez xixi
Where the Emperor peed

Cana doce, Santo Amaro
Sweet sugar cane, Santo Amaro

Gosto muito raro
Very rare taste

Trago em mim por ti
I carry it inside me for you