) Because an empty mind is the devil’s workshop, I went there to hear “Envolver”, Anitta’s mega-success. The song (a term I use here without much conceptual concern) appeared on my musically narrow horizon through social media. A lot of people saying it’s the best song in the history of the Universe, that Anitta is bigger than Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna together, that this and that.
More than listening, I watched the music video. And, look, I’m just not going to say I’m sorry because that rant at least earned me this column. If it hadn’t been for “Envolver”, at this moment you would probably be reading a text about Daniel Silveira, Alexandre de Moraes and Arthur Lira. In other words, it would be a column about pornography other than Anitta’s explicitly pornographic music.
Without wanting to sound like an old geography teacher, I’m forced to ask my young audience, if I have one: does anyone get sexually aroused by that? Does anyone see any kind of beauty in that? By the way, do the young people of today know what beauty is or at least know that beauty is written with “z” and not with “s”? Does anyone fall in love to the sound of “Envolver”? Some elderly couple will one day say to their grandchildren
that “‘Envolver’ is our song!”? (Calm down, boomer!
). But I don’t go so far as to say that the careful listening and analysis of “Envolver” was a absolute waste of time. After all, the music aroused some desires in me – although far from those intended by the boring beat and the absolutely pornographic combination of lyrics and choreography. The first wish was to quote Bill Bryson. And that’s exactly what I’ll do now. Now: “I mentioned my observations that the world seems to be full of imbeciles. They explained to me that this is just a sign of age. The older you get, the more it feels like the world belongs to others.” The excerpt is in a recent book by Bill Bryson. But Anitta’s music didn’t make me want to go there on the shelf to get the title. Okay, okay, I’m going. Returned. The book is “The Road to Little Dribbling”, still untranslated in Brazil. Satisfied? This quote comes to my mind whenever I write about the conflict of generations. For me, it’s a good-humored way of self-criticism and acknowledging the grumpiness of those who see young people as always a sign that this world is going from bad to worse. And it will. Another desire that music awakened in me was to speak of the famous & infamous group É O Tchan, absolute success on radio and TV over the years 960. I’m not going to say that Cumpadi Washington & Co were the fathers of semi-explicit musical pornography at that time. At that time, Madonna had even released a semi-porn movie. The difference is that É O Tchan appealed to children. At that time I was a teenager listening to Nirvana’s depressing rock. He saw those children twitching, shook his head, maybe even said “tsk, tsk, tsk” – and left thinking that it was a restricted phenomenon and without major consequences. At that time I believed in the existence of an elite guardian of that culture that the most educated write with “k”. Finally, I can only thank the great songwriter, singer, dancer, performer and political influencer Anitta for giving me the opportunity to speak about Cole Porter. It’s not every day that happens, is it? (I clear my throat, adjust my bow tie and happily open a paragraph). Cole Porter wrote one of the most discreetly pornographic songs of all time: “Let’s Do It”. The song is an absolute classic of the American songbook and everyone has their favorite version. I, who am far from being that person who knows a very rare recording made clandestinely in a roadside bar in rural Wyoming, like the Ella Fitzgerald version contained in “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book”, by 1956. The lyrics are full of delicious insinuations that today sound even childish. Birds do, bees do. Even polite flies do. The “do” anyone knows what it refers to, but a mischievous Cole Porter disguises it all with “let’s fall in love”. In Ella Fitzgerald’s version, the clever lyrics, full of winks to the listener, as in the untranslatable pun “Lithuanians and Letts do it”, are accompanied by a melody also full of innuendo. With the right to a battery that, without exaggeration, I lie, with exaggeration, with a lot of exaggeration even, takes me to the heights of musical pleasure.Wills
Little did I know that, thirty years later, it would be reasonably acceptable to see a lady with large glutes rubbing against a man with equally large features, all to the sound of a little more annoying tap than the car alarm that goes off at 3 am, and singing a lyric that reduces sex to a physiological need like any other. And that I would be here writing about this bagasse.Guardian of culture
Until the lazy jellyfish