When I previously wrote about a Janis Ian album, I felt relaxed. I knew that it would be new to most people and I wanted to recommend it as a fun, well-written, under-the-radar album. I feel much more pressure writing about Caetano Veloso’s 1971 album (refered to as either London London or self-titled). I hope to explain why it’s important to me personally, and am conscious that I am writing in relative ignorance of much of his extremely varied and successful career1. Most of his music is in Portuguese, which I am less familiar with2.
I first found him through his 2004 album covering American pop songs3. From that, I picked up a collection of his music and was smitten with “Maria Bethania.” Over several years, I learned more about the context for the song, and was able to find a copy of the album that originally included it. I will write today about the three songs that comprise side 1 of the album, all of which I think are remarkable.
I am inspired in this attempt, in part, by
and ’s remarkable project in which they each compiled a list of their top 100 albums, and then compare notes. They have managed to pull it off with a combination of fluid and insightful writing and vast musical knowledge. I don’t match their ambition, but I would rank this album in my personal top-10 and I think it’s worth recognizing as a historically great album.It was composed under remarkable circumstances. From The Guardian
Only two years earlier, [Caetano] Veloso and [Gilberto] Gil had been two of Brazil's biggest pop stars, leading lights in the slyly subversive Brazilian psychedelic rock scene Tropicália. That was until the military dictatorship decided they were a threat. In December 1968 they were arrested in São Paulo. They had their heads shaved, spent two months in prison and a further four months under house arrest.
"The military wanted us to leave the country," says Veloso. "They let us play a concert to raise money for a plane ticket." As the rest of the world watched the moon landings on 21 July 1969, Veloso and Gil were preparing to leave Brazil. They wouldn't return for another three years.
...
Veloso was depressed and homesick throughout his first year in London, while Gil was rather more upbeat. . . . alVeloso also made music in exile, but his tended to be more introverted. He jokingly describes his 1971 album, London London, as "a document of depression". There are songs such as Little More Blue, with the lyric, "One day I had to leave my country, calm beach and palm beach"; and the title track, with the bittersweet lament "green grass, blue eyes, grey sky, God bless".
With time, they came to feel better about their experience (but note that Caetano Veloso’s comment clearly communicates the weight of the experience — emphasis mine).
Both look back with fondness about their time in exile. "I never wanted to live outside Brazil," says Gil. "But London is one of the most interesting cities in the world, and I am lucky to have lived there." "It is only now that I can say that I like the music I recorded there," says Veloso. "The things we learned in exile made us more creative musicians. It also made us stronger people."
It produced some of the greatest music about homesickness that I have every heard. Part of what makes it so striking is that it has all of the elements I am attracted to; gorgeous tunes, songwriting that is precise, specific, personal, direct, and with raw emotion. Running through it is also a quality of strangeness and discomfort which is completely understandable in the situation and was striking even before I knew the history. It fits the emptions of the emotion of the song that there is a combination of incredible musicality and performance skill and occasional clumsiness singing in English. The writing is powerful and clearly foreign to my ears.
To put it simply, from the first time I heard it there unmistakably something happening — which is both intimate and private.
There’s a recent live recording of “London London” (in the back of a cab) which highlights the beauty of the tune and, presumably, Veloso’s making peace with that experience. See him here as the successful older man, and then we’ll go back to his younger days.
1: “A Little More Blue”
One day I had to leave my country
Calm beach and palm tree
That day I couldn't even cry
And I forgot that outside there would be other menBut today, but today, but today, I don't know why
I feel a little more blue than then
I feel a little more blue than then
I feel a little more blue than then
I feel a little more blue than then
One of the best songs I’ve heard about homesickness, and the way that emotion is private and personal. Each verse tells a story of some specific moment of sadness or defeat which range from the seriousness of being arrested and going to prison to being caught be emotion watching a sad movie. After each verse the chorus says that, today, he feels sadder than he had on that day.
The weight of being lonely and away from home hangs over the whole song and is, explicitly considered heavier and harder to carry than some of the worst individual moments in his life.
Also, in this song you hear the technique which re-occurs in “Maria Bethania” of a line repeated until it shifts from being a specific phrase to just the sound of words and music4.
2: “London, London”
I choose no face to look at
Choose no way
I just happen to be here
And it's okay
Green grass, blue eyes, gray sky, God bless
Silent pain and happiness
I came around to say yes, and I sayGreen grass, blue eyes, gray sky, God bless
Silent pain and happiness
I came around to say yes, and I sayBut my eyes
Go looking for flying saucers in the sky
This song also has a tension between the verses and the chorus. Each verse talks about the ways in which being in London is pleasant or at least safe. But the chorus emphasizes his disconnect from that daily life. The meaning of “looking for flying saucers” is never explained, but clearly expresses both a feeling of unreality and feeling separated.
3: “Maria Bethania”
Maria bethânia, please send me a letter
I wish to know things are getting better
Better, better, beta, beta, bethânia
Please send me a letter
I wish to know things are getting betterEverybody knows that it's so hard
To dig and get to the root
Everybody knows that it's so hard
To dig and get to the root
You eat the fruit
You go ahead
You wake up on your bed
But I love her face 'cause
It has nothing to do with all I said
But I love her face 'cause
It has nothing to do with all I said
The longest and most ambitious song on the album. I would say this about each of these songs but particularly for “Maria Bethania” I would encourage everyone to listen to the full song. I don’t know any way to fully describe the range of different moods and styles. It goes between harsh almost Dylanesque imagery of a world full of danger (“Everybody knows that our cities / Were built to be destroyed”) to tenderness towards his sister Maria Bethania (also a professional musician and famous and Brazil).
Finally the last three minutes of the song (and the first side of the album) are a wordless and cathartic almost psychedelic section.5
I find those three songs an almost perfect realization of craft, artistry, and expression of difficult and subtle emotions. All of them are slightly strange and I cannot think of any way they could be expressed better. A great and timeless album; one of my very favorites.
The Allmusic bio opens by describing him as, “A true heavyweight, Caetano Veloso is a pop musician, poet, filmmaker, author, activist, and statesman. Since the 1960s, he has been a cultural shapeshifter whose songs and recordings are filled with musical and literary invention, a deliberate androgyny, and an effortless genre meld of samba, MPB, tropicalia, rock, funk, jazz, and more. ... His stature in the pantheon of international pop musicians whose peers include Bob Marley, James Brown, and Lennon/McCartney.”
As I have mentioned before; I tend to be very attentive to lyrics in songs.
"People all over the world would like to find a way of thanking American popular music for having made their lives and their music richer and more beautiful. Many try. So do I."
There is a Ted Lasso episode in which they name the sensation of repeating a word until it seems meaningless as ‘semantic satiation.” That is not exactly how the repetition functions in these songs. The words retain meaning but they are no longer fixed within the phrase; the meaning becomes more abstract and fluid.
I recently saw a great quote about Frank Zappa. I wouldn’t call the end of “Maria Bethania” a freak out, but this captures an element of what happens, “A friend of mine played the double bass in a leading London orchestra that was once engaged to record Zappa’s music for the film 200 Motels (1971), conducted by the composer. In one piece the players were discomfited to see that their written parts tailed off in a long squiggly line. The orchestra leader politely asked Zappa what this unusual notation signified. ‘That’s where you all freak out,’ Zappa replied. After a general raising of eyebrows, professionals to the last, they freaked out until the composer was satisfied.”
Thanks for writing about this wonderful album. It’s a favourite of mine too. You’ve picked up on much of what I cherish about it: the songcraft, Veloso’s way with words (and it’s lovely to hear him sing in English—as on A Foreign Sound—though, of course, I adore hearing him in Portuguese and Spanish too); the context; the tribute to his sister. And I love the production too; it just sounds great.
Thanks for the kind words & signal boost! I'm not sure I've heard this record, but after reading this, it's clear I need to change that!