I WAS SENT OVER THE EDGE BY THE JINGLES, M'LUD
The municipal elections take place in October of this year, but campaigning has already begun. Every day, including Sunday, between the hours of 9am and 10pm, baseball-hatted clowns are driving around town belching out some of the worst electoral jingles ever scrawled on somebody's hand during a bender in Pirapora do Bom Jesus. They are uniformly degrading of the political classes (if that's possible to any greater extent than they manage themselves), and my prediction is that it could lead to an outbreak of random knifings, particularly if I don't find professional help soon.
When I was a child, local elections were greeted in our leafy English suburb by a lone Ford Cortina containing a member of the ruling class meekly urging voters to, "Vote Conservative, you know it makes sense". In a scandalous (to me then) attempt at vote-buying, the Tories once offered my mother a lift to the polling station, only for her to vote for the SDP, making it the closest she's ever come to civil disobedience. But Brazilian elections are handled in an entirely louder, more strident manner.
The jingles range from the Brazilian sertanejo-style country music (the current Mayor's effort at re-election), to the warbling Whitney Houston-style homage to everything kitsch (some other candidate) and a more samba-laden number from one of the others. The lyrics are really what inspire, however. As each candidate has a five-figure number, some fairly ludicrous rhymes are concocted. My personal favourite remains one that assaulted our senses during the last round of local elections, involving the coupling of the number 7 (sete, pronounced setch-y) with the word lanchonete, or snack food establishment (pronounced lan-shon-etch-y), due to the candidate's ownership of the same. It proved a tragic tune, nay his requiem, in fact, as in the middle of his mandate, the victorious vereador (local councillor) was ruthlessly gunned down as he opened the same lanchonete one morning. Politics is not for the faint-hearted, or indeed the unarmed, round these parts.
Personally I thought it was an overreaction - there were far worse jingles during that election campaign, that stood out for their unimaginative time signature, deeply inane lyrics and failure to spark anything but an apathetic torpor. If I were a candidate, I would avoid meeting a violent end by employing the sublime composing skills of the Legend of Olinda, Alceu Valença.
I doubt he'd accept, though.
When I was a child, local elections were greeted in our leafy English suburb by a lone Ford Cortina containing a member of the ruling class meekly urging voters to, "Vote Conservative, you know it makes sense". In a scandalous (to me then) attempt at vote-buying, the Tories once offered my mother a lift to the polling station, only for her to vote for the SDP, making it the closest she's ever come to civil disobedience. But Brazilian elections are handled in an entirely louder, more strident manner.The jingles range from the Brazilian sertanejo-style country music (the current Mayor's effort at re-election), to the warbling Whitney Houston-style homage to everything kitsch (some other candidate) and a more samba-laden number from one of the others. The lyrics are really what inspire, however. As each candidate has a five-figure number, some fairly ludicrous rhymes are concocted. My personal favourite remains one that assaulted our senses during the last round of local elections, involving the coupling of the number 7 (sete, pronounced setch-y) with the word lanchonete, or snack food establishment (pronounced lan-shon-etch-y), due to the candidate's ownership of the same. It proved a tragic tune, nay his requiem, in fact, as in the middle of his mandate, the victorious vereador (local councillor) was ruthlessly gunned down as he opened the same lanchonete one morning. Politics is not for the faint-hearted, or indeed the unarmed, round these parts.
Personally I thought it was an overreaction - there were far worse jingles during that election campaign, that stood out for their unimaginative time signature, deeply inane lyrics and failure to spark anything but an apathetic torpor. If I were a candidate, I would avoid meeting a violent end by employing the sublime composing skills of the Legend of Olinda, Alceu Valença.
I doubt he'd accept, though.
posted by M C Ward | 11:34
5 Comments:
Ah, jingles, a vile prostitution of μουσική, the "art of the Muses". Here in Romania we seem to only have one jingle: a revolutionary song designed to remind the Hungarians that they didn't rule here unchallenged and don't at all any longer.
It'd be great if people are turned on to Brazilian music by reading Mr Ward's blog. My personal favourites are (or were, they seemed so much better back in the old days) Timabalada.
Astrud Gilberto stands for the council, pledging to sing in key if elected.
Gadjo, I'm humbly doing my bit.
NGB - what if she sang Desafinado - Off Key, by the late great Tom Jobim? She could have to seek asylum in Risca.
(I put this in parenthesis, because it's slightly off-subject: Mr Pouncer's uncle has farm near Risca, in a place called Bassaleg. What a small world!)
(My grandfather used to manage a farm called The Pandy just over the mountain in Machen. He went bankrupt during the war due to a lot of bad debtors.)
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