1972: Caetano Veloso, Transa

By Francisco Martins Fontes 

Caetano Veloso, perhaps the most beloved singer songwriter in Brazil, is turning 80 in August.  Yet he’s still touring, bringing not only his classics but new material to audiences that range  from people his own age to teenagers. The former have followed his career from the beginning,  the latter grew up listening to his work alongside their parents and grandparents - or  discovered him by themselves, as his relevance in Brazilian culture is still so palpable that in  many ways Caetano remains a contemporary artist. During his most recent sold-out Brazilian  tour, after playing “You Don’t Know Me,” the opening track of his 1972 album, Transa, Caetano  explained that this album was not initially meant to be released in Brazil, and that he never  expected it to be such a beloved album in his own country to this day, exactly 50 years after its release. And yet it is, for genius is not easily ignored. Caetano has released 24 albums since  then, but none has the cult following of Transa. Though it doesn’t contain huge hits, it holds within it an entire identity.  

At the peak of the Brazilian military dictatorship, following a strong persecution and blacklisting  of Brazilian artists, Caetano was arrested and soon exiled from the country. He spent the next  three years in England, and came back to Brazil soon after releasing Transa, which had been  entirely recorded in London for a supposed international release that ended up not happening  as planned. The album, which mixes his native Portuguese to the English of his exile safe  haven, seems to yearn for the country he was forced to depart, and is filled with as much  emotion as formal experimentation and the combination of sounds. British rock is mixed with  reggae and samba, 17th-century-poetry inspired lyrics are followed by a new arrangement of a  classic tune (“Mora na Filosofia” - the only track in the album not written by Caetano); and, in an  early form of sampling, Caetano quotes lyrics from songs that inspired him - from  quintessential Brazilian artists to The Beatles. It is rock; it is samba; it is pure music. The result  is unforgettable, and in its own way continues to influence some of the music that comes from  Brazil today. 

Transa made its way to me in the time of my own self-imposed “exile” from Brazil - my foreign  university studies. While Caetano was a name I had heard during my whole life - just Caetano - and anyone who’s grown up in Brazil knew his classics, he was never an artist I actually made an effort to sit down and listen to. I don’t know if  this is the result of an active adolescent rejection of my own culture - I had barely listened to Brazilian artists - or simply the result of a lack of curiosity to explore something that seemed to already surround my day-to-day life. What I wanted back then was to know more about what was foreign to me, different from the experiences that I’d lived in my country, with the potential to show me new roads I could take. My young self did not value the necessity of understanding my own culture, and thus understanding myself. 

That soon changed when I arrived in the U.S., where I studied and lived for the next five years.  And while I surely missed home, it was a girl I fell for who brought me closer to my culture than ever before. It was a blessing to meet someone from my own background while abroad, and I was soon head over heels for her. She was unlike anyone I had ever met. Yet during our conversations, it felt unnatural to be unaware of many of the references she made to our shared culture. How could I have been raised in the same country as her and not know some of the basic staples of Brazilian life? Some I pretended to know better than I actually did, others I’d go looking for as soon as I got home after spending a day with her. And among the infinite sounds and colors that she brought into my life there was Transa.

A decade later, as I listen to this album I still feel a mix of emotions, and a series of connections  are fired up in my brain. Some albums take me straight to a particular moment in time, transporting me back to when I first heard then played them on repeat, ad infinitum. And while Transa takes me to New York in 2012, it also carries me home to Brazil. No other album does that to me, and surely connected to the fact that it is a work of art created during the artist’s exile, and that I myself discovered in exile. This connection between where you come from and where you are, what you are experiencing and what you long for, is unique. To me, Transa is a bridge between times and self, and is an integral part of my development into who I am today. It was the true gateway drug for me to delve into Caetano’s catalog, research and learn what I could about my own musical culture and background, and find my way to some of the most revelatory and influential sounds that inhabit my brain today. 

But Transa also started to represent something new to me over the past few years. As I’ve  mentioned, the album was produced when Caetano was exiled during the 20-year military dictatorship that took over Brazil between the mid ’60s and mid ’80s. It was a time of supreme repression and violence, filled with torture and horrendous deaths, extreme  persecution of our artists, and an overall trauma to an entire generation. A moment of our history that should not be forgotten, but that should be left to rot in the past, never to be repeated. And yet, following the rise of far-right political figures taking power all over the world, in 2018 Brazil elected for president a man despicable enough to praise the time of that horrific dictatorship, who claims that the country would be in better shape today if even more lives were taken back then, and has brought the country closer to a  dictatorship in the last four years than at any time since the ’80s. It is terrifying to be under an anti-democratic figure that praises guns and mocks books, whose misogyny and racism undermines the majority of the population, and who endangers the world by destroying the Amazon forest; it is chilling to be in the mercy of a government that kills activists and honors those who scorn them.  

How to cope if not to resist? How to keep sane if not to create art? I listen to Transa now, and  think of how close we are today to the country that Caetano had been expelled from. I listen to  its sounds and lyrics, and think of the artists that are struggling to make a living today, but who  do not give up, and keep on fighting and creating, much like Caetano and his contemporaries  did. While the album is not necessarily a political one, the reality that surrounded its creation  makes it so. And so it remains political - remains immediate and important - even 50 years  after its release. Caetano recognizes this. He has, since before the election of our  current president, been actively and strongly protesting against him and his politics, and openly condemning him and his followers. During his concerts, the audience chants anti-Bolsonaro slogans as loud as they sing the lyrics to songs. Caetano knows, in the flesh, the damage that politicians like Bolsonaro and his supporters in power can inflict; and that things can always get worse. Brazil’s next presidential election is in October, and it is up to us to get rid of the incompetent monster that currently holds the country by its (and our) throat. Only by connecting to each other and understanding that we are not alone can we change  things.  

This sense of unity that can, and hopefully will, lead us to a better future was entirely present  during the recording of Transa. Produced by Ralph Mace and with musical direction by Jards  Macalé, an artist as creative as Caetano himself (even if mostly unfairly forgotten), the  recording band included Áureo de Souza, Moacir Albuquerque and Tutty Moreno, as well as  appearances from Angela Rô Rô and the inimitable Gal Costa. This was Caetano’s first album  with a true band backing him, and they were essential to build the sound of the songs that  compose it, as it was a collective endeavor that was recorded almost as a live album. It is  therefore curious to point out that at the time of its release, the LP was erroneously put out 

without liner notes, and the vast majority of fans was for a long time unaware of who was  behind the music they were listening to - who orchestrated and arranged the sounds that were  filling their living rooms, minds, and spirits. Now those names are known, and their legacy  guaranteed - but I’d still like to hereby thank and acknowledge them as much as Caetano for  the work put into this album. 

I am as old today as Caetano was when he recorded and released Transa. Fifty years have  gone by, only 10 of which I have been avidly listening to it, passionately thinking of who I was  and where I was when first introduced to it, apprehensively considering how a harsh reality can  always return. I attentively listen to what Caetano has to say about love, identity, time, and belonging. In less than 40 minutes and just seven tracks, this album is capable of transporting me through time and space. This might be an effect exclusive to my personal  connection to it, but I guarantee that it will move you, too - regardless of your grasp of Portuguese or the lyrics - for the music itself stands out and triumphs. This is an album that should be heard from start to finish, as intended. The songs are marvels individually, but together they shine bright. May it continue to be played for another 50 years. May it reach an audience that looks back at the time they first heard it as fondly as I do. What’s more  special than that? 

Francisco Martins Fontes is a music lover and avid concert goer, but who has worked with film  for the past decade. After graduating in Film Directing in New York, he went on to achieve a  Film Studies Master in Amsterdam and a Stop Motion Animation Master in Barcelona. You can  find him on Twitter @Francisco_MF or Instagram @Prince_Cisco.