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Samba Saravah

Être heureux, c'est plus ou moins ce qu'on cherche
J'aime rire, chanter et je n'empêche
Pas les gens qui sont bien d'être joyeux
Pourtant s'il est une samba sans tristesse
C'est un vin qui ne donne pas l'ivresse
Un vin qui ne donne pas l'ivresse
Non, ce n'est pas la samba que je veux
 
(Partie parlée voir en bas)
 
J'en connais que la chanson incommode
D'autres pour qui ce n'est rien qu'une mode
D'autres qui en profitent sans l'aimer
Moi je l'aime et j'ai parcouru le monde
En cherchant ses racines vagabondes
Aujourd'hui pour trouver les plus profondes
C'est la samba, chanson qu'il faut chanter
 
(Partie parlée voir en bas)
 
On m'a dit qu'elle venait de Bahia
Qu'elle doit son rythme et sa poésie à
Des siècles de danse et de douleurs
 
Mais quel que soit le sentiment qu'elle exprime
Elle est blanche de formes et de rimes
Blanche de formes et de rimes
Elle est nègre, bien nègre dans son cœur. (2x)
 
Translation

Samba Saravah

To be happy’s more or less what people want
I like to laugh and to sing, and wouldn’t stop
Other people from laughing and enjoying themselves
And yet if there is a samba without sadness
It’s a wine that has failed the merry madness
A wine that has failed to bring out joy
That’s not a samba I’d enjoy
 
“To sing a samba without sadness is to love a woman who has nothing but her beauty.”
So said Vinicius de Moraes, poet and diplomat, author of this song and, as he calls himself, the blackest white man in Brazil. I, who am perhaps the most Brazilian Frenchman in France, would like to speak to you of my love for samba, like a lover telling everyone of his love except the woman he loves.
 
There are some for whom samba is a code
Those who treat her as nothing but a mode
Those who profit from samba without love
My love for her’s led me ’round the globe
In search of her vagabond abodes
Today she’s the deepest one can find
So I’ll sing the samba for mankind
 
João Gilberto, Carlos Lyra, Dorival Caime, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicuis de Moraes. Baden Powell who together created this song and many others, I salute you. Tonight I raise my glass to you in gratitude for everything you helped me discover, you who made the samba what she is. Saravah....
Pixinginha, Noel Rosa, Dolores Duran, Cyro Monteiro,
to all of you. And for those who are coming, Edu Lobo, and the other dear friends so close to my heart tonight, Baden of course, Ico, Oswaldo, Luigi, Oscar, Nicolino, Milton. Saravah… To all of you my friends who invented a word I can never say without emotion, a word that stirs people and makes them sing, arms raised to the sky, samba.
 
I am told down in Bahia she was born
Where her rhythm and poetry was formed
Throughout centuries of dance and of pain
 
(x2:)
But whatever the feeling she conveys
She has the form of whiteness in her grace
White in form and white in rhyme
She’s the soul of true blackness in her heart
 
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Comments
domurodomuro
   Mon, 27/07/2020 - 21:00

The source lyrics have been updated. Please review your translation.