Portuguese Fado

Once upon a time in the streets of Lisbon (XIX Century) people started to sing about their fate, then it invaded bars and restaurants: a singer (man or woman) and a Portuguese guitar (12 chords) that’s what compose this music. They use to say about Fado and its meaning that is unforgettable world music. In so many ways, its melancholic lyrics and melodies encompasses a sense of navigation and a journey in the sea.  Imagine going back to 1500 when the great great navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil, and to 1498 when Vasco da Gama, discovered maritime route to India (the first person to sail directly from Europe to India), Fado reminds golden times. Fado is emotional for it is brave, outrageous, and blue. Its organic production is made to touch everyone’s heart, apart from social class stereotypes.

Amália Rodrigues had the most known voice. She travelled the world singing Fado, the club Mocambo was among those many places, in 1954.

Amália’s sadness, love and despised love (artistic temperament) nourished her success.

Carlos Coelho da Silva is the Portuguese director of biographical movie Amália, here you can go through her life, from childhood to the early days of Gloria, but ever biography has its flaws, and some pointed out that dates weren’t that accurate. Despise that the movie is worth seeing, a lot of Lisbon is shown, the Lisbon of the 50’s – the rich and the working class arrived from the countryside , in search of a better life,  even if that meant to be selling fruits to the sailors of Tejo River and tourists, likewise Amália did.

There’s two songs of Amália: one, an ode to Lisbon light, the other to saudade, a word that has no translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.