My new favourite song is Águas de Março. Pandora found it for me in my “Mas que Nada” playlist where it is sung by four or five different performers so I get to hear lots of different versions. This one – with Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim – is the best version by a mile.

I was surprised to see how upbeat and happy they are in the video (I am watching it for the first time with you) as I had a very different interpretation in my head.

When I first heard the song, I took it to be two lovers exchanging sweet nothings across a shared pillow but after hearing it over and over I had to go google the lyrics to find out what it was really about. Wow. That was a shock.

First of all, I had no idea the song was so famous and important. I thought I had discovered a hidden gem and was the only one to enjoy it. How was I to know that I was the very last person in the world to hear it?  I am very familiar with Antonio Carlos Jobim and love his music but I had never heard of Elis Regina (which made Gilles laugh out loud). I have since made up for lost time and now she’s a favourite too.

Secondly, the lyrics… wow. I was way off.

É pau é pedra
É o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco
É um pouco sozinho…

É um caco de vidro
É a vida é o sol
É a noite é a morte
É um laço é o anzol…

É peroba do campo
É o nó da madeira
Caingá, Candeia
É o matita-pereira…

…

São as águas de março
Fechando o verão
E a promessa de vida
No teu coração…

Wikipedia tells me that Jobim wrote a completely separate set of English lyrics and I don’t know how much they correspond with the Portuguese lyrics [If only we knew someone who speaks Portuguese! – Ed].

It is wood, it is stone
It is the end of the way
It is the rest of a bole
It is a bit in loneliness

It is a shard of glass
It is life, it is sun
It is the night, it is the death
It is the tie , it is the hook …

It is peroba do campo
It is the knob in the wood
Caingá, candeia
It is matita-pereira

…

They are the waters of March,
closing the summer…
and the promise of life…
in your heart.

Now I know that the song is about the passing of summer (March is at the end of summer in the southern hemisphere) I hear the song as a wistful reminiscence of beautiful ways and a mournful expectation of the winter to come. For me now, it’s a song about loss. Perhaps the loss of youth and the approach of our autumn years. But then I see Tom and Elis having a fine old time on the video and am more confused than when I started. I have no idea what the song is about.

Before I finish, I’d like to say a couple of things about Mas Que Nada, the song that started all this.

Like most of the northern hemisphere, I was introduced to this wonderful song by Ronald and Co’s delightful romp through the airport during the ’98 World Cup.

And reminded of it by Ronaldinho and Friends, Joga Bonito-ing it up eight years later… which brings me to my second point about Mas Que Nada.

Someone needs to stop the Black-Eyed Peas from covering other people’s music. They peaked around Shut Up (which I used to sing as a duet with my then nine-year-old daughter) and Hey Mama! and everything they have sung since then has the consistency of mushy peas and I’d rather they didn’t turn other people’s great songs into mush.