Tuesday, October 23, 2012

"Alegria, Alegria" (1968)




Like Clarice Lispector, Caetano Veloso is also from north-eastern Brazil (Santo Amaro da Purificacao, Bahia). Like the myth of Los Indios Tabajaras, he and his artist/activist comrades in the Tropicalismo movement engaged in cannibalism, albeit of the artistic kind, drawing on a range of avant garde, pop, psychedelic, South Asian and Latin bossa nova influences to create a soundtrack for youthful pleasure and, at the same time, a soundtrack for revolt. The word that he, Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes used to describe this cannibalism is antropofagia. The revolt he and his comrades went into exile (and jail) for was against a Brazilian military dictatorship that began in 1964 and ended in 1985.

The video above is from a performance of his most famous song "Alegria, Alegria" (1968). The video below is the studio version:




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