RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The 10 tracks of ‘O Real Resiste’ show a more intimate Arnaldo Antunes, with serene accents and revealing songs. In his 18th solo album, the first of his extensive discography that will not be released in physical format, there is no hard beat like the previous ones.
It runs along the expressive lyrics of light and balanced sound. Arnaldo Antunes has done, once again, a great job.
“I was eager to revert closer to the song, closer to how the songs were composed on the guitar,” he says.
He says he had been establishing several musical partnerships with the guitarist Cézar Mendes, and with him, in parallel, having continued meetings with pianist Daniel Jobim.
As a result, Cézar and Daniel, plus instrumentalists Dadi (guitar, bass and ukulele) and Chico Salem (guitar and acoustic guitar), founded the group of musicians who recorded ‘O Real Resiste’. In the chorus are Karine Carvalho, Caru Zilber and Ricardo Prado. The arrangements for this new album were made collectively during recording.
The album’s concert debuts in March in voice and piano (performed by Vitor Araújo). It is the first time Arnaldo performs a concert with only one instrumentalist. He will perform the songs together with poetry performances.
Homage to João Gilberto
The work O Real Resiste opens with a song in tribute to João Gilberto, played in the Jobiniano style by Daniel (Tom Jobim’s grandson).
“João Gilberto was a huge thing for Brazilian culture. To start with this song is also because we live a hostile moment for culture. It’s to say that a nation is made through its cultural values”.
It wasn’t a posthumous tribute. João Gilberto was alive when it was composed. Cézar Mendes met João several times at the end of his life and introduced him to his melody and Arnaldo’s lyrics.
“João invented a language. There is something new and refreshing there. That is how a nation is founded”, defines Arnaldo, referring to the song: “There are so many and so few that are aware of how a nation is founded / It is not with monuments or cannonballs / It is when a breeze blows into the breath and into the judgment of a João”.
De Outra Galáxia, a partnership between Arnaldo and his wife Marcia Xavier, deals with the impossible love becoming possible. “It extends from the milky way to the molecule. It is the possibility of doing the impossible through love”, describes the song.
In Barriga do Vento, which speaks of fatherly love, was written by Arnaldo in the dressing room of one of the Tribalistas’ performances. The song is also signed by the musicians of the trio Pedro Baby, Pretinho da Serrinha and Marcelo Costa, in addition to Carlinhos Brown.
“This song deals with the learning time and the detachment of knowing that the child will walk on its own,” he says. The song features Celeste, Arnaldo’s daughter as the second voice, who studies music and intends to record her first solo work.
Another great track is the samba Onde É Que Foi Parar Meu Coração? (Cézar Mendes and Arnaldo Antunes), the last one on the album.
O Real Resiste
The title track clip for the new album came out in November. The song O Real Resiste was written right after the election, in 2018.
“The song is an expression of perplexity at what was happening. Astonishment at having people advocating for dictatorship, torture, censorship, denying global warming, threatening indigenous communities. In other words, everything that we value and people saying it with the utmost ease. It’s a song that says: it’s not possible that this is happening”.
Meanwhile, the lyrics try to refer to the real world “of people who value ethics, dignity, civility, dialogue with differences, the absence of prejudice”.
Another reading can be done by the title track O Real Resiste, according to Arnaldo, in the sense of inversion: “We are seeing our rulers inverting the truth all the time. They say that Nazism is left-wing, that the earth is flat, that there is no global warming, that it was NGOs that set fire to the Amazon, that Greenpeace dumped oil into the sea”.
The song was written when Arnaldo was on tour with the Tribalistas.
“The main issue is the joining of forces that want to advocate for democracy, that do not want to allow barbarity, violence, racism, prejudice to normalize. The media says that the country is polarized as if it had a left-wing and a right-wing. But the idea of polarization is another: it is of those who are threatening democracy and of those who are advocating democratic values. The forces, from left-wing to right-wing, with a civilizing spirit of not giving in to fascism, have a duty to join together to advocate what we have left of democracy”.
For Arnaldo, people do not react to barbarity because of the speed with which rights and freedom are being curtailed.
“There is a state of amazement and people have to overcome this, talk and build a more solid resistance. Everyone has a duty to take part in the resistance, to take a stand”.
Below, the lyrics for the title track of Arnaldo Antunes’ last album, O Real Resiste:
Authoritarianism does not exist
Sectarianism does not exist
Xenophobia does not exist
Bigotry does not exist
Witch Ghost Boogeyman
The real resists
It’s just a nightmare, then it goes away
In the smoke of a rocket
It’s just an illusion, no, no
It must be an illusion, no, no
It’s just an illusion, no, no
It can only be an illusion
Militian does not exist
Torturer does not exist
Fundamentalist does not exist
Flat Earthers does not exist
Monster vampire haunting
The real resists
It’s just a nightmare, then it goes away
Mummy zombie fear depression
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
Slave labor does not exist
Deforestation does not exist
Homophobia does not exist
Extermination does not exist
Headless mule demon dragon
The real resists
It’s just a nightmare, then it goes away
Like the bang of thunder
It’s just an illusion, no, no
It must be an illusion, no, no
It’s just an illusion, no, no
It can only be an illusion
Death squad does not exist
Ku Klux Klan does not exist
Neo-Nazism does not exist
Hell does not exist
Tyranny is elected by the crowd
The real resists
It’s just a nightmare, then it goes away
Werewolf terror oppression
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
Source: CartaCapital