This video is probably the most in-depth and thoroughly researched piece of content we've put out to date, and we're super excited to share it with all of you. Obviously, videos like these are completely demonetized and claimed by the copyright owners of the music we have to talk about, so it really does move mountains when you all choose to support the channel by way of the Academy! If you'd like to support what we do and learn a TON about music at the same time, be sure to check out this link and use code MUSICTHEORY30 at checkout to get 30% off your purchase!! cornellmusicacademy.com/

So happy not to see so many dictatorship apologists in the comments. It was a dark and terrible time, many people disappeared forever. Unfortunately, some insist on defending the indefensible. Congratulations on the amazing video!

I never thought that the Brazilian history is so dificult to explain to a non-brazilian person until now... For us brazilians this is just another thursday

"Construção" from Chico Buarque is a masterpiece. All the song uses alexandrine verses, 12 syllables, ending on proparoxytones at each verse. It was not random, this was on purpose! It's poetry, not only music. Also, the song is about a construction worker, so the rythm tries to give the idea of a construction going on, step by step, one element after the other. That's genius!

Charles, please consider activating subtitles in Portuguese so that we can share this video away with our Brazilian fellows. Brazilians have a deep rooted challenge when it comes to recognizing their own value and this video is extremely helpful in order to try to make them see the greatness of this era. Thanks!

One of the best songs that got through the censorship was "Cálice", by Chico Buarque. The chorus of the song is: "Pai, afasta de mim esse cálice! De vinho tinto de sangue." (Father, move this chalice away from me, Of red wine of blood). The thing is that "Cálice" has the same pronunciation as "Cale-se!", which means "Shut up!". So the song is literally asking God to move the "Shut up!" away, which symbolizes the censorship, but at the same time references a chalice filled with "red wine of blood", which symbolizes the torture and death at the hands of the government. I don't know how it got through the censorship, but it did.

I totally love that you can’t talk about the history of any South American country without a part where the USA intervened and made it worse.

“Morreu na contramão, atrapalhando o tráfego..” this phrase it’s so poetic cause its also a reference to dying as opposition. A lot of people disappeared during those dark times. Families would be trying to find some awnsers, which obviously never did.. his lyrics got so much layers.. startles me the fact the we almost got hooked by the same sort of poison so recently.. it feels like we were on a verge of new tropicalia once again.

In português, these lyrics sound like poetry! The translation doesn’t “translate” the amazingly smart choice of words and subtle meanings behind it!

"Construção" never rhymes, but the words at the end of each line go together because all of them have the same intonation pattern. So it's even more amazing if you speak Portuguese.

as a brazilian I can say that you should be SUPER proud of this video because it's super amazing, well presented and researched!

I'm not brazilian but holy molly, bossa nova is just amazing, the harmonies, the rithm, the lyrics, everything it's just perfect and really different to everything else

Eu nunca imaginei que veria um vídeo estrangeiro falando da musica brasileira de protesto dessa forma com tanta visibilidade! Obrigado por mostrar que o BR não é apenas festa.

I'm a Brazilian historian and researcher of the military years, I just would like to congratulate you for the research of this video, you've got it very right even summarizing and trying to adapt to a KZfaq content. Never take this for granted because I'm tired of seeing academics that couldn't even reach the level of explaining and comprehending you got it. Congratulations really, amazing content! In music, I am no expert in nothing, but I would also recommend you take a look in the origins of Brazilian music when examined in the correlation with influences it got from the melancholic Portuguese "fados" and the African and Native American rhythms, I'm sure it'll blow your mind!

Thank you so much for not denying the influence of the United States in the Brazilian Dictatorship, you have no idea how this is the greatest gesture of respect you can have for our history and culture.

As a Brazilian, I need to thank you! Our rich culture is sometimes not recognized due to the chaotic development context. The country contains the culture of populations of African, European and indigenous origins. It went through dictatorship, slavery and other various processes. It is always difficult to show and explain our culture, our world. Brazilian music is much bigger than funk and pop.

I am Brazilian btw , and everytime I listen to Construção by Chico, I get goosebumps and my eyes tear up. Such a powerful piece of art.

A curiosity from Chico's construção: every verse finish in a proparoxytone word, very rare in portuguese language, in a way that the words don't rhyme and yet flow in a very noticeable rhythm. It's a work of genius!

É lindo ver estrangeiros entender essa fase da música brasileira dentro do contexto. Dá até um fio de esperança.

Brazilian history teacher here: congratulations and thank you very much!

Great video! I'm Jamaican but I speak Portuguese fluently. This video reminds of when I was in Salvador with a friend. She was telling me about how much she liked Bob Marley's music. I told her that they are a lot of messages in the lyrics to his songs. It's much more than a seductive Reggae rhythm. She said that about Chico Buarque is like that as well. When I listen to "Samba De Orly" and "Construção", I understand what she was saying.

Construção is not only one of the greatest Brazilian songs, but one of the greatest songs ever made, and I'm thrilled to see it discussed on this channel. Cornell actually undersells how brilliant the lyrics are: The story of the death of a construction worker is repeated from three different perspectives, each time becoming increasingly hostile towards the worker. This is accomplished by merely rearranging the last word of each line (which happen to all be three syllable words with the stress on the first syllable). Having the same words but in a slightly different order completely changes the context and meaning. By the third and final verse, the construction worker is completely dehumanized; his death a mere inconvenience. From there Buarque launches into a furious refrain, an invective against the dictatorship for twisting reality with propaganda and bringing harm to its people: "for [all that you've done], GOD WILL REPAY YOU!". It's a masterpiece lyrically and musically.

I don't think I've ever seen a video like this on KZfaq that covers politics, history, and how music played such an integral role in it all. Really puts a different perspective on how music can be much more than just what you hear on the radio on your morning commute.

It kinda makes my heart flutter to see people from all over the world creaming over how much they like Brazilian culture. It is absolutely heartwarming as a Brazilian 😊

listening to these, its so haunting and beautiful. reading the comments of brazilians about construção and their interpretations of it is so interesting and makes me appreciate this even more

As a longtime listener of Bossa Nova and Tropicalia, it's so refreshing to see a piece that explores the political messages within the music of that time. Most US listeners think of bossa nova as sort of cheesy jazz (as its so often been used as a music cue for laughs), rather than the wildly complex and rich creative expression of deeply oppressed people. Well done.

Glad to see Chico Buarque making an appearance in the video. He doesn't seem to be as noticed by foreign people as he should, probably because his stuff stands out mostly due to the geniality of his lyrics. He's probably the greater portuguese-language songwritter of all times.

I mean the 90 seconds explaining the first half of 20th century Brasil is just pure GOLD. Thank you for this.

Chico é o maior artista vivo no Brasil! Man I'm a brazilian musician living in the usa, and I really liked your video. Congrats! There's something else about "Construção" which is about how he start to change the order of the words throughout the song and the song kind of keep having the same meaning. There's so many ways of understanding it, as the whole lyrics were a construction where everything is moving around but at the end it has comum goal. There's another Chico's protest song called "Cale-se" and this is in my opinion the most incredible one, in terms of meaning.

I’ve been listening to bossa for the last 20 years and it’s impossible not to pick up on the bitter sadness in many melodic and harmonic motifs, but I have never been able to have a deeper understanding of it. This video is amazing!

the poem that originated sabiá is called “canção do exílio”, which means, “song of exile” and, while it was about a traveler originally, it’s not that much of a stretch if you consider people were literally getting exiled for speaking up against the dictatorship. Of course all of this went by unnoticed without being censored and it’s definitely clever because it hides the protest behind what seems like strong patriotism, converting the wish to go back to Brazil geographically into going back to a different political scenario within Brazil

Man, I love Bosa Nova, but I never knew this. You've just opened an entire realm of appreciation for me. Amazing video!

I’m a Brazilian human and my childhood in the authoritarian regime. I really appreciate your analysis of our music, “Construção“ is one of my favorite musics , thank you

This is wonderful, Charles. My grandpa was one of the people who 'went missing' during the 70's. Music was always a big part of our family and you managed to capture... all of it. I'm sharing this vid with everybody I know, and as an english teacher, it'll be my pleasure to translate and subtitle this lovely video into Portuguese, so more Brazilians can learn our own history from this amazing and rich, well-researched and inspired video. Thank you for this.

Bossa nova touched me to a point where I was asking myself "What happened in brazil?". The lyrics where lost in translation but the harmony wouldn't let me go. My 2 month only bossa nova loophole binge concluded in finding this video of yours. Great video, Much apprechiated !

I grew up with Portuguese and Brazilian music and gotta say, you nailed it in construção. I wish Portuguese were your first language. You would feel it even more. Buarque won the Camões prize, meaning he is assuredly one of the best craftsmen of my colourful language. Well done. Loved the respect. Respect.

I’m History teacher in Brasil, and you should be so proud, this was GREAT! ❤

I'm Colombian, and I'm studying political Science, this video was everything I needed for my music and politics subject. Literally today we were talking about protest and how music is so important for societies to show political discomfort. We were mainly focus on Colombian protest music, and now, due to your video, I'm got really interested in Brazilian music and thet way they use it to resist by it. I hope I made myself understand, my English it's kind of broken.

YES, BRAZILIAN CONTENT ON CHARLES CORNELL CHANNEL!! I'm super honored to see the history of bossa nova around here, and how u guys got so much effort to explain everything with all the details, it's amazing and I love it! Thank you Charles crew, always here to support 🇧🇷❤️

Another brazilian here. This was a beautiful display of respect to our culture and our History. The way you presented “Construção” actually gave me goosebumps. Congratulations! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

As a Brazilian I really like this kind of research. It's very positive that with music in focus you help to spread the politics of the 20th century and even cites the fact that the USA government has a huge influence in the military coups. Music is just powerful!

Apparently my granduncle was one of the people who went "missing" during the dictatorship. He was very vocal about his dislike for Brazil, even saying that living under the Empire of Japan would've been much better, refusing to speak Portuguese with people and always shouting Japanese at them. What's funny is that he came to the country with this idea of a tropical paradise where everyone was always warm and happy, only to have all his views shattered by the government.

Construction also has some nuance that are extremely hard to translate to English because it involves grammar play and how Chico manipulated that to create meaning. For instance, all those words he switches at the end of the sentences like "máquina", "lógico", "música", they are proparoxítonas, meaning the stress is at the beginning of the word (more precisely on the antepenultimate syllable). That helps mark the beginning, but especially it keeps and builds the cadence as he switches the meaning to make it less and less literal and more and more poetic, surreal, hectic and dauting. Up until the worker's announced death, ironically messing up a Saturday, the day of resting (and the traffic and the public.... messing up the social order of acting like a proper useful piece of machinery). After that, all the words ending the verses are oxítonas, meaning the stress is at the end. Words like "comer" (to eat), dormir (to sleep), existir (to exist), they are the end that justify the means (a tortured existence) and they mark the end of the worker's life, and the end of the song. Like an oxítona word, the stress is at the end, and there's nothing after it. Just brilliant songwriting from beginning to end.

The period of the dictatorship is when we got the best art in Brazil. It feels that the best art is created in the worst situations. That's why the best artists tend to be kinda disturbed. Chico Buarque is a genius and his lyrics are pure poetry of the highest caliber.

Let me just say, WOWWW!!! What an INCREDIBLE lesson in Brazilian music through the dark, awful years of the military dictatorship! I unfortunately lived in that horrible regime from age 2 to age 23, and the analysis you made is SO spot-on!! As someone who experienced the horror of censorship, torture and killing of innocents for so long, I can attest to the fact that our AMAZING musicians and their INCREDIBLY BRILLIANT music was all that pretty much made sense and gave us solace through all those years. It remains, in my opinion, the very best of what pop music can ever represent, and it is very, very sad to witness the pathetic excuse for music that has unfortunately reigned absolute in the last ten or twenty years in Brazil. THANK YOU SO MUCH for this incredible video!

As a Brazilian, everytime I listen to Construção I get the chills thinking about the tortured people of that time. This song is definitely a masterpiece!

Esse vídeo precisa de legenda em português para muito mais pessoas verem essa obra de arte.

As a brazilian, I'm really happy to watch this video. Chico Buarque's "Construção" is one of my all-time favorite songs! Is also really nice to see someone from another country also studying our political history and sharing a little bit of our mess to the whole world.

Some brazilians are in need to remember our history. You did an excelent job here. ❤

“Construction” is haunting to this day. It ends with “God Bless You” being repeated over and over while Chico piles up verses like “for the floor where I sleep, for the bread I eat, for letting me breathe, for letting me exist” while the chords go back and forth on an Em cadence you just want to leave the country.

Hi! huge latin american literature fan here! The way you mention Construção is written is called constructionism and was a literary movement in latin america in which you change the adjectives in a sentence to change its meaning. The song repeats itself three times, each deforming the perception of the listener about the protagonist (the worker) and the world around him getting bleaker and bleaker until reality sets in, a place in which we mean nothing to those in power, oppressed, poisoned and left to rot..."Deus lhe pague"

This video has to be, must be seen by a lot of people. Thank you so much for telling our brazilian history. It brings a large emotional bagage to the songs.

É triste ver videos gringos falando dessa parte do Brasil pq os proprios brasileiros não dão a atenção q ele merece. Muito obrigado por esse video

O cara da uma aula de história e de música, irado! Fico é feliz que ele conte sobre nós brasileiros, e compartilhe com o resto do mundo que não sabe bem português.

As a Brazilian, I'm so proud not only to see our revolutionary music being studied and spread, but also to see a foreign content creator who talked about it pointing out the responsibility that U.S.A has in the dictatorship period. That was a great video! And of you want a little bit more to study, you can search about the song "Cálice" by Chico Buarque and Milton Nascimento and everything the hip hop movement been through since it started

'Goulart' is pronounced as Ghoul -art'. PS: you really took a rather deep dive into Brazilian 20th century History, never seen anything like it in a music channel.

As a Brazilian History teacher and amateur musician, I'm really positively impressed on how you guys were able to squeeze so much information and analysis in such a short time and to do it with so much precision. Sure it's all more complicated than you make it seem, but that's the kind of introduction that someone who is really into History and music needs to begin deep diving in this rich subject. Congratulations!

This was cool. I had no idea how powerful bossa nova could be. That traffic song with the horns hit me in the feels.

One of my favorite pieces of Chico Buarque music is "Jorge Maravilha". The context to this song is that it was revealed that the son of the dictator was listening to Chico in secret and had some of his casette tapes. In the song he tells the story of these lovers that have a relationship which is disapproved by the father, and the chorus is just a dig into the dictator saying "You don't like me, but your daughter does". The cesnors did not catch that this was a song making fun of the govt as he used a pseudonym when submitting it to them. It's just so petty and perfect.

what a great video! as a Brazilian I feel very happy for our history to be understood worldwide so it gives our songs a whole new meaning for the listeners around the world

As someone from brazil, it's always great seeing foreigners interested in brazilian History and Culture! I encourage anybody who is interested in this kind of protest music to also research the tropicalia movement. Um salve do Brasil Charles!

As a Brazilian, I cannot describe with words just how ecstatic and proud I am that you made this video. Thank you Charles!

As a Brazilian thta lived that era, I loved to hear your point of view. Tks

I’m very impressed! I’m brazilian and it’s noticeable how much you studied and made a very well written script. Wish I could send it to many people, but sadly they don’t speak english. Congratulations on the video!

As an Argentinian I never imagined our history would be so similar to Brazil's! I actually always thought they were pretty different from us and...that's why we often don't get along lol, but during your whole explanation of the political situation I kept laughing because it sounded like our history at the time but with the dates mixed. Oh Latin America, always so fun! :,D And the protest music reminded me SOOO much of our protest music too, especially Charly García. "Ou panis et circensis" made me feel right at home! Congratulations on your AMAZING music! It gave me SHIVERS

Hey Charles You forgot to mention that Chico Buarque is the lyricist of "Sabiá" Also Jobim included the verse without consulting Chico which led to some disagreements between the two But in the end Jobim agreed to drop the verse entirely!!!

As a Brazilian, I must only say, amazing video ! Accurate description and awesome approach to the fact and cultural context!

Increadably accurate 😮

im brazilian and i probably learned more about the history of bossa and Brazil in this video than in my entire high school. obrigado Charles

I'm not brazilian, but portuguese, but I can say for sure brazilian music is very much alive in Portugal too. It's really really nice to listen to an analysis from the US, both respectful of History, but also with a spin for everybody. You made it international!

Parabéns pelo excelente conteúdo! Eu, como carioca, fico orgulhoso de ver a cada dia nossa cultura ser entendida e valorizada pelos estrangeiros. A Cultura Brasileira, em todos os setores, seja música, teatro, literatura, arquitetura ou ilustração, tem grande profundidade de conceito e de técnicas.

Legendas? um vídeo incrível desses sem legendas para ser apreciado é quase um crime.

My dad one night, as we were listening to Construção on the car, told me about how genius it is that Chico, in a song named construction, plays around with the semantic construction of the lyrics, reorganizing sentences as if their meanings were interchangeable. Since then I have always tried to make my friends notice the brilliancy of the song the way I did, but they just didn't seem to listen to it with the same ears I do. For that reason, watching a guy who's not even brazilian react to the song with the exact same excitement I do (specially in the traffic bit, that gives me goosebumps all the time) was quite surprising but really really thrilling to me, specially followed by such an in-depth analysis that added so many layers to my interpretation of this brilliant piece of art. I love you for that. Also the video was amazing. Greetings from Brazil🇧🇷🇧🇷

i feel like crying!!!!! what a beautiful videooo so incredible! please please please never stop making these

As a Brazilian I can say that this video is incredibly well researched and spot on! 🙌

As a brazilian that is heavily interested in the history of my country, i just want to make some notes: Vargas isnt as much a black and white dictator as you'd initially believe, and to understand that you have to understand the political instability the country was in during the pefore it. The old republic(1889-1930), aka the first republic, never was exactly democratic. The person with the most votes won, yes, but voting wasnt secret, which led local farmer elites to intimidate most of the population into voting for their candidate of choice. These local elites would form alliances throughout the whole country, specially between São Paulo and Minas Gerais, that was the richest and most populous state respectively). This, since the immense majority of the population was in rural areas, pretty much guaranteed that a president that represented their interests would win (and fraud was rampant and no one did anything because it was done by the most powerful people in the country). That was until the 1930s economic crash, that pretty much destroyed our coffe exporting economy, and São Paulo farmer oligarchy broke their alliance in order to use the state to bail them out, so they nominated Júlio Prestes for president. This made the oligarchies from Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais and Paraíba pretty pissed off, and a revolution to overthrow him began to be planned. It was backed up by a large body of low ranking military personnel that were already dissatisfied with the current political system for over a decade. Finally revolutionaries invaded São Paulo from both north and south and overthrew Júlio Prestes, putting Getúlio Vargas in his place. His government was really confusing, from him governing without a constitution, to him making a constitution (which was a lot more progressive and democratic than what we had before, universal women suffrage, voting secrecy and creating every worker's rights we have to this very day), to him making a false flag operation to become a dictator in 1937 and starting to control the media and pretty much create the idea of the brazilian nationality. In 1945 his image was pretty worn out and with the troops coming back from world war 2 from fighting fascist to an authoritarian state, the contradictions became too big and he resigned office. He was still extremely popular though, and was voted into office again 5 years later. His 1950s goverment was way less successful in accomplishing his goals, because now he had a fierce liberal opposition, but he still managed to statize all of our oil reserves, create the largest public bank to foment our economy (which is still extremely important to this day!) and increase the minimum wage by 100%. After a lot of political attrition and an alleged attempt to assassinate one political opponent, he was pressured to resign by by the media and military, to which he responded by killing himself with a bullet to the heart and leaving a suicide note addressed to the whole country. To sum up, he both fought against an authoritarian regime and was authoritarian himself, he created vital voting and worker's laws that are used to this day even 3 constitutions after while being a supressor of strikes and staying in power for 15 years without being elected, he had some fascistic traits while declaring war against the fascists in italy. He supressed the liberal party, the communist party, but also the openly fascist party. His censorship stifled culture, but also created the whole idea of national identity we have today. I have heard him being called "the father of the poor and the mother of the rich", and heard extremely anti-authoritarian anti-protecionism say he was brazil's best president. It's extremely hard to pin down what his exactly ideology was and his legacy is certainly nuanced, but still he is the most impactful president and dictator we have ever had and defining him as pure good or pure evil is a disservice to the complicated character that he is.

As a Brazilian Who has been living in the US for the past 10 years, I became SO happy to read the thumbnail - and it only got better from there. I was already a huge fan of yours, but my respect for your content increased almost exponentially! Side note: the fact that you even mentioned how our dictatorship was sponsored by the US when introducing its history… You really did your research. All the examples, great analysis and attention to detail, seriously! Thank you Charles!!

Hi, Charles. About Construction, from Chico Buarque. The music narrates an 'official' report about an accidental death of a man. But we all knew he didn't died by that supposed accident. He died by the hands of the regime, and the reports are telling a lie. It's not about the government not caring about the death, it's about the government CAUSING the death, and reporting it as an accident. The name of the song it's because many contruction (and many of the Construction companies were allied with the regime) sites were used by the regime to silence many of its opposers.

such a complex topic! great job at being concise!

Hey Charles, I'm currently working on a school presentation on how music is used as a form of resistance in Latin America, and I'm totally using this as a source! Thank you for all the great content!

The most well presented, accurate and historically deep video I've ever seen on a non-brazilian KZfaq channel, talking about brazilian history and the coolest thing: from a guy that I follow for so many years and admire his content. Absolutely fantastic. Hands down. As I musician wannabe (which I studied a lot) I'm proud to see the respect here for brazilian culture. My father lived on these veiled and hateful days, was beaten in the protests and always told me how the music by Tom Jobim, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso (and others) were the fix for these broken-soul people (by the coup, the censorship, and so on). You didn't mention another classic censorship deceiving, which was the cover of the album "Todos os olhos", by Tom Zé, which is an anus with a marble. The censors didn't realized and let it be launched!

Yt has just recommended this video for me and as a Brazilian I'm shocked and amazed at how you did such and amazing work. This video is perfect in so many ways I don't even know where to start complimenting. Thank you for telling our history and showing the world our music.

The fact that this video does not mention or analyze the song "chalice" is very sad, it is the most perfectly constructed song to fight against censorship. All work with cognates, all sensation that nothing could be done is simply magical!

As a Brazilian, here is my playlist, i can say my favorites are: Construção Cotidiano Trem de Doido Chega de Saudade É preciso dar um jeito Preciso me Encontrar Agua de Bebe Menino das Laranjas Azul da cor do Mar (its not bosa nova, but its a great song) along many others, but its such a vibe to listen to this and imagine a noir 50s - 70s era Rio. its my favorite brazilian music for sure.

Existe uma coisa muito interessante, além de inúmeras outras, sobre a música "Construção" do Chico Buarque. Cada verso dessa música termina com uma palavra proparoxitona, ou seja, uma palavra cuja sílaba tônica é a antipenúltima. Além de ser muito difícil compor poemas em português com esse tipo de palavra, elas são as palavras com menor abundância na língua portuguesa, existindo uma quatidade muito maior de palavras paroxitonas, e oxitonas. Como se isso já não fosse difícil o suficiente, Chico repete a mesma história da música, onde narra o suicídio de um trabalhador, três vezes. Porém, não é uma simples repetição: ele troca a ordem das palavras proparoxítonas nos versos mudando o sentido semântico das mesmas palavras usadas. Além disso, embora sejam usadas as mesmas palavras, mas de formas diferentes o que muda o sentido semântico das mesmas, a história narrada, no sentido global da música, continua sendo exatamente o mesmo: o suicídio de um trabalhador. Na primeira vez, temos um estilo descritivo, um pouco materialista. Na segunda vez, temos o mesmo fato sendo narrado, mas numa linguagem um pouco mais metafórica. Na terceira vez temos a mesma história sendo narrada numa linguagem poética e lírica. Tudo isso apenas mudando a ordem de uso das mesmas palavras, as proparoxítonas, as palavras mais difíceis de rimar na límgua portuguesa. De fato, essa música é uma "master piece" que me faz sentir orgulho de ser brasileiro.

It's a shame most Brazilians ignore our own history and music, and now many listen to really bad music at the same time they support authoritarism and are nostalgic of the dictatorship

I was happily surprised with how interesting this video was. Very good job, I found this video very enriching.

American jazz music brought me here to hear Brazilian Bossa Nova....and I love the journey.

6:48 This band, Mutantes, has recorded several of their greatest "tropicália" hits in english, and toured by europe and USA between 1968 and 1972. Great psychedelic sounds!

I literally studied this a month ago, and it is BEAUTIFLE. And im so happy that someone from out of Brazil is interested!!

I started watching this video last year and never finished! I'm so glad I came back to do so. I loved the cherishing manner that you had with our history, because that is what makes those songs so powerful and meaningful! Not only that, but I'm glad that, besides the language barrier, music can connect us so deeply! Thanks for the video, Charles!

My dad, a first generation Brazilian immigrant, recently told me about his absolute favorite singer, Chico Buarque. So hearing more about him is wonderful! With the little bit Ive heard from him, I find my favorite of his songs is "meu Caro Amigo", the lyrics are like a letter to his friends to deliver news about how hes doing and whats going on around him.

It's so interesting how simple this is for us Brazilians yet so fascinating... Fun fact: Chico Buarque was also a playwright, very influenced by Bertold Brecht. You can see how Construção was perfectly put together, just close your eyes and you can picture the scene, it's impeccable

Congratulations from Brazil! the review of this historical period is perfect!

Loveeee this vídeo!

Being Brazilian, musician and a person who cares about politics in my country, I have to say this video was a special gift. You being a foreigner and making the effort to understand what goes on both politically and musically in Brazil... And producing a super rich content about it, with intelligence and sparkling eyes... Your joy, your interest in all you're saying can be seen. I have the same joy. It's very mind-blowing and rejoicing to see this in a non Brazilian good musician! Thank you!!!

Holy shit dude. This video is incredible. It's so incredibly well-researched and explained, very reminiscent of the old John Green Crash Course videos. I would LOVE to see more content like this.

You have missed one of the most amazing feat about the music Contrucao from Chico Buarque, which is how he uses the same adverbs from the first part of the music and relocate them in different sentences giving a different meaning to the second and third part of the song. Its like a puzzle were he uses the same pieces and you get 3 different frames at the end with the same story. Simply magical

you seem so passionate about what you are saying, its pleasing to watch

I learned of Chico Buarque's Contruçao as a kid in the spanish version by the Argentinian Cesar Isella, and yes, it's a totally devastating piece of art. There's something in how the lyrics start linear and straightforward and slowly get all mangled up and psychotic, that haunts you forever.