O Cantador / Like A Lover

One of the pleasures of travel is leisure to explore connections, especially in music, one of my loves. I noticed that the melody to Like A Lover on my Sérgio Mendes album was familiar. A search revealed that it was an English reworking by Alan and Marilyn Bergman of the Dori Caymmi/Nelson Motta classic O Cantador.

Of course! I had the Flora Purim interpretation for years and never noticed the identity, because Like A Lover is a breezy, wistful love song in the Sérgio Mendes rendition, while O Cantador is slow, dark and shot through with pain. This is not the first reworking of a Brazilian song that changed the character. In the case of Manha de Carnaval / A Day in the Life of a Fool, it's the other way around, the English version is the sad one.

You don't need to understand Portuguese to feel the pathos in this Anna Setton interpretation which is set to be a definitive rendering. You can also follow the Portuguese lyrics using my attempt at translation. Travelling in Europe gives me (possibly false) confidence in such tasks. There's a pun in the Portuguese lyrics: cantador / canto a dor, singer / I sing of grief.

Anna Setton is a promising talent and I look forward to her first album; it seems she has done only concerts so far. When I get home I'm going to track down a music sheet and practice both versions. I know the slower version will be harder to play. A bit of mistiming and the mood is damaged.

O Cantador (The Singer)

Amanhece, preciso ir
Dawn, I must go
Meu caminho é sem volta e sem ninguém
My road has no return and no one
Eu vou prá onde a estrada levar
I go where the road takes me
Cantador só sei cantar
Cantador only knows how to sing
Ah! Eu canto a dor
Ah! I sing of grief
Canto a vida e a morte, canto o amor
I sing of life and death, I sing of love
Cantador não escolhe o seu cantar
Cantador chooses not what he sings
Canta o mundo que vê
He sings the world he sees
E pro mundo que vi meu canto é dor
And the world sees that my song is grief
Mas é forte prá espantar a morte
But it is strong to ward off death
Prá todos ouvirem minha voz
For all who hear my voice
Mesmo longe
Even from afar

De que servem meu canto e eu
For them my song and I serve
Se em meu peito há um amor que não morreu
I know my bosom has a love that never died
Ah! Se eu soubesse ao menos chorar
Ah! If I had at least known to cry
Cantador só sei cantar
Cantador only knows how to sing
Ah! Eu canto a dor
Ah! I sing the grief
De uma vida perdida sem amor
Of a life lost without love