Today's song I had begun to hear quite a bit from various good performers and every one who did it made me love it. It was always called "Estate", which made me think the name had something to do with an elegant mansion situated on beautiful land with a wall around it and an elaborate gate in front of it. I wondered what kind of doings had been going on at that estate that seemed to make somebody yearning. I felt it had to be quite an unusual subject or location to sing a song about.
Some of the versions sang lyrics and others just had the music. It seemed that those that had lyrics were sung by Brazilians, so I assumed that the language the song was in was Portuguese. And my absolute favorite version, the one that I have linked to here, was sung by the famous Brazilian Bossa Nova artist, Joao Gilberto (there is supposed to be a tilde above the "a", but I can't make my computer do that, but just letting you know). He had been married to the brilliant Brazilian singer whom I have long loved, Astrud Gilberto, whom I first heard singing Antonio Carlos Jobin's classic Bossa Nova song, "The Girl From Ipanema": "Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes, I smile, but she just doesn't see". God, I have know that song from as far back as the cusp of puberty. However, my favorite "Brazilian women walking" lyric is Michael Franks's "Down in Brazil": "All those cafe-ole girls in high heel schools, will really cure your blues, it seems they all just aim to please, those women sway like wind in the banana trees". But I digress.
It ends up that this is an Italian song. The two song writers were Bruno Brighetti and Bruno Martino, they are clearly Italians. The song title is the Italian word for "summer": "estate". Who would have guessed (not me) that a perfectly good English word (estate) would also be a perfectly good word in Italian, but having an entirely different meaning. (The other seasons in Italian are: autumn is "autunno", winter is "inferno", and spring is"primavera".)
But the song wasn't all that popular in Italy. I am guessing it might have had a faster, more jazzy tempo, which wasn't so suitable for such a heart-felt, emotional song. It took the romantic Joao Gilberto to get ahold of it and run it through his "Bossa Nova" hopper to transform it into a popular hit. And that however many years after Gilbert had transformed it, it would have grabbed my attention, as I love Bossa Nova music and snap up as much of it as I can find. Joao still sings the song in Italian, at least in the version I have linked to here is, but his version is soft and slow, almost whispering in your ear or cradling you in the palm of his hand, so sympathetic he is over the emotional loss that you are suffering. The lyric it as actually from the point of view of the one who has the loss, so maybe you are the one doing the comforting. However you happen to feel about it. But let's just say it is you with the sorrow...he can't fix it, your love will have to become entranced by somebody new, but he can at least commiserate without judgment meanwhile. He knows how it feels and that gives comfort.
But here, let me give you a translation in English. The translator is a young man named Guilherme Benke. Here is a list of all the languages he can speak: Portuguese, English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Galician, Greek, Italian, Japanese, and Russian. Wow, way to make me feel utterly inferior, guy! But I am thankful he has done this:
Summer, hot as this kisses I have lost, Full of a love that is now long gone,
And that my heart wishes to forget, Summer, the sun that warmed us every day,
That brought us amazing sunsets, And that now burns me hard,
Winter will come again, A thousand rose petals will fall,
Snow will cover everything, Maybe some peace it'll bring in too,
Summer, who gave its perfume to many flowers, The summer who created our love,
An amazing job and a legacy of pain.
That last line, in Italian, is "Lavori eccellenti, i legume di dolor." which I read as saying "excellent labor, and a legacy of dolor". That word "dolor" fascinates me. Generally its synonyms are sadness, sorrow, unhappiness, dejection, regret, depression, misery. cheerlessness, downheartedness, despondency, despair, desolation wretchedness glumness, gloom, heaviness of the heart, dolefulness, and melancholy. All very miserable things, right?
But also there is a girl's name, Dolores. See that that name contains the root word "dolor", and wonder, as I have done, how anybody would have ever chosen to name their little girl "Dolores", other than it is a beautiful sounding name. That is like calling her "child of woe". Well, I studied the issue and discovered that another translation of that name is "Mother Mary's Tears"...in other words, the tears of Jesus's mother. Suddenly it becomes less a name of woe and more a name of divine power. Not to go overboard with this, but I see how it becomes something secred and heavenly, a name that rises to infinite heights. The beingness of Mary goes infinitely beyond the "momentary" loss. There is something much greater beyond.
So, sure, you had these hot kisses but now something made summer's love go away and the only hope to stop your pain is for the snow of winter to come and lay a muffing blanket over summer's perfume to bring you the piece of forgetting. But don't forget, after winter comes spring, and the chances remain that this time, you will find the love that counts, the love that is real, the love that will remain. So within what was lost, there is the seed of something much, much better. Don't despair, look forward to what awaits you beyond.
Meanwhile, there is the comfort of an understanding voice....
25: Song name: Estate (Summer)
Artist: Joao Gilberto
Lyrics: Bruno Brighetti
Music: Bruno Martino
English translator: Guilherme Benke
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