Psychedelic Territories: Exile and Sonorities in Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how the recordings made by Brazilian singers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil while in exile in London in the early 1970s adapt and color the ideas first drafted in Brazil several years earlier as part of the Tropicália movement. While the music on those records continues to reflect the tropicalist principles of cultural anthropophagy and other ideas of the Brazilian counterculture, at the same time it also reveals, via both lyrical symbolism and the music itself, the cultural clashes and feelings of nostalgia for home that were part of the exile experience.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by CAPES Foundation (Brazil).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The musicians of Tropicália are addressed in this article, but the movement also included the poets Capinam and Torquato Neto and the designer Rogério Duarte, among others.

2. The Festivais da Canção were competitive events promoted by Brazilian TV channels, boosting the careers of many artists of the time: “In general, the generation from the 60s makes its public appearance in the Festivais da Canção beginning in 1965, with the I Festival de MPB in São Paulo, from TV Excelsior” (Naves, “Da Bossa Nova” 40).

3. Bossa Nova is a musical style developed “mostly as of 1958” (Naves, Da Bossa Nova 9), which promoted a reinvention of the Brazilian music from a “musical style compatible with the new languages that were arising abroad (especially North American jazz) as well as in Brazil, particularly in Rio,” bringing in “not only a singular harmony but also an unusual way to deal with the voice and the guitar” (Naves, Da Bossa Nova 9, 13).

4. Northeastern music was represented at the time by renowned artists like Luiz Gonzaga (from the state of Pernambuco) and others more contemporary, such as João do Vale, from Maranhão.

5. Produced in the slums (favelas) of the city of Rio de Janeiro, of which Cartola is a great representative.

6. On 13 December 1968, Ato Institucional nº 5 (Fifth Institutional Act) (AI-5) gave rise to the first arrests of intellectuals and activists, removal of politicians from office, censorship acts, and the closure of the Congress.

7. “Marinheiro Só” had been recorded by Caetano Veloso in 1969 in a much more upbeat version, mixing regional rhythms with psychedelic rock sonorities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luiza Bittencourt

Luiza Bittencourt is a Ph.D. Student in Communication at Fluminense Federal University (Brazil) and Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (FLUP). She is a scholarship researcher at CAPES Foundation (Brazil).

Rafael Lage

Rafael Lage (1977–2017) was a Ph.D. Student in Communication at Fluminense Federal University (Brazil), and scholarship researcher at CAPES Foundation (Brazil).