WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - MPBeats: Episode One

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

In this episode of MPBeats, Erika Kyba is joined by Sergio Mielniczenko and Kyle Canjar to talk about the iconic bossa nova movement, the rhythms of Brazilian music, and what makes MPB unique.

It's on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you a little taste of Brazilian music each week. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this musical journey. Now, you might be sitting there thinking Brazilian music. Why specifically Brazilian music? Did you just spin a wheel of all these random countries and just pick one at random? Why not? Chinese music, Japanese music, French music, Italian music.

Well, Brazilian music is something very special. Obviously, if you just take Brazilian music as a whole, it spans several different genres, it's evolved a lot over time, it can go in several different directions. But I think what unites it is that there's this really rich rhythmic character to most of the songs, of the genres, a rich melodic structure, and it's also very rich lyrically. And in addition to that, I think that you'll find that a lot of, Brazil's national character and a lot of its political struggles is reflected in the music, but that bit about the national character, Brazilians are a very joyful people. Despite the

immense political struggles, economic struggles that the country has faced, somehow its people just manage to pull together and look on the bright side and find that joy in life. And, you know, the joy is just made that much more precious by the struggle. You have to, when you have to make that intentional choice to find joy, I think that that joy becomes more real, and that's reflected in the music. So how do I know anything about Brazilian music in the first place? It's because I'm Brazilian. My mom grew up in Brazil, moved to the States where my sister and I grew up,

but Brazil has very much been an influence in our lives, and this is kind of the music that we grew up with. And I'm hoping that I can share that music now with you. Now, say you're visiting a country. You don't just kind of jump out of a helicopter, in the middle of the city and wander around and not have any guide. No, usually you have a tour guide. You have somebody who knows the lay of the land who's going to show you what's what, tell you what these different parts of the city mean to them, what they mean to the country as a whole,

what's special about them. And that's what I'm hoping to do for you. I'm hoping to be your tour guide into Brazilian music. So buckle up. We're going to hit a lot of different stops in our time together today. And I'm thinking we're going to start by interviewing two experts about Brazilian music. We're going to talk about the theory from people who understand music really well. Like, what makes Brazilian music special? And after that, I'm going to give you more of a layman's perspective. Let's put it that way. If you just take a random 20-year-old woman who's grown up listening to this music, who doesn't know a lot about musical theory just on her own, more just the knowledge that I do have comes from kind of taking in what other people have said.

They're not an expert by any means. But what does that mean to just a typical Brazilian? And hopefully when you walk away from this, the songs will mean something to you. Maybe you'll find something you really like, something that resonates, something that you can relate to. I think it's appropriate in our discussion of Brazilian music for us to start with Bossa Nova. So you've probably listened to Basanova before. I'm going to play a clip and

Dollars to Donuts, you've heard this song before. It is the girl that people generally think of when they hear It is the song that people generally think of when they hear about Bossa Nova. If you don't know what the lyrics mean, it's a very melancholy, wistful sort of song. It's about this guy who's on the boardwalk of Ipanema, and he sees this beautiful woman walk by every day, and she lights up the world when she walks by, and he feels this love in his heart, but he's never going to be able to express it.

He's never going to be able to talk to her. And so they're both lonely. He talks about him being loved. And then she's also by herself walking around and they're kind of like these two souls and like he feels this for her. But he doesn't have the courage to talk to her. And so they both stay lonely. And you know, that's it's quite melancholy. But at the same time, there's just this this beauty in in the song and the emotions that are expressed are so lovely. And so I think that that gives you a little taste of what Basanova can often be like. It is very joyful, generally.

I mean, you hear that really happy sound. It's very unique, instrumental things that they do in the beginning. But at the same time, you can kind of get this undercurrent of melancholy in the lyrics every now and then with the songs like these. So if we're talking about history, Bossa Nova is kind of what puts Brazil really on the map musically. If you're interested in kind of the interplay with the history of Brazil and specifically like how Basanova shapes that, there's this really interesting book. It's called Brazil a biography, and it's by Lilia M. Schwartz and I'm Liza M. Starling. And I think that they sum up in this book what Basanova did for, it's not a book about Basanova, but I think they sum up what Basanova did for the country very nicely. It says here, the Basanova revealed a completely different Brazil, one that was young.

happy and luminous. It was a breath of fresh air for the country's cultural life and for the political atmosphere, too. At first hearing, many people failed to grasp its rhythmic subtlety and the relationship between Bossa Nova and Brazil. Some thought the dissonance was a sign of alienation of the composers who did not discuss politics. Others interpreted it as an attempt by the Kariaka middle class to Americanize Samba. But whether for or against, no one was indifferent. As a musical movement, Bossa Nova was short-lived, at least at that moment. It started in 1958, and lasted until around 1963. Nevertheless, in that short time, a new musical genre was created,

whose rhythmical patterns turn samba on its head, and whose dissonant harmonies inaugurated a new concise style of interpretation. So, yeah, basically what they do in Bossa Nova is they take the samba beats, and samba has been around basically as long as Brazil has, it is integral to the national character. A lot of this Brazilian music that we're going to listen to together, you kind of hear that influence of the samba beat is kind of baked into it. What Baza Nova does, though, is that they kind of take that and they innovate.

They put samba on the guitar. They put the samba beats to guitar, and they have the guitar strings, like, plucking out that samba beat, and you get this really cool sound as a result of that, and you can kind of, you kind of heard it in that sound bite. So now that, to the best of my ability, I've given you a taste of what makes Bazanava unique in my view and played you a little bit of the ubiquitous Bossa Nova sound so that you know what you're listening to, we are going to interview an expert on the subject who can kind of give us more context about the Bossa Nova genre. So about to join us right now is Sajumel Nechenko of the Brazilian

Radio Hour. You're listening to MP Beats with Erica Kaiba on Radio Free Hillsdale. Today we have a very special guest with us, Sajumelnachenko, who runs the Brazilian Radio Hour. Welcome, Oh, it's my pleasure. Nice to be with you. So for those that might not be familiar with the Brazilian Radio Hour, will you tell us a little bit about how it came to be what the story is? Yeah, it came actually by chance 46 years ago. I work at the cultural sector of the Brazilian consulate in Los Angeles. We offered like an hour at the local radio station, KXLU at Loyola Marymount University.

We started doing it with a few albums and it kept on developing. And in 19, I believe in 1981, it became a national program distributed by national public radio. Then we got into doing distribution to all the embassies with a version of the program in Portuguese, then French, Mandarin, Spanish. And we kept developing. It was wonderful. It has been a wonderful experience. Was there anything like that before when you got into creating the program or was it totally new? Yeah, it was a new idea. We had no clue how it was going to evolve. But during all this time, I think my real pleasure was meeting the musicians and getting to know them and my idols actually.

and has been a great experience. Will you tell us about some of the idols that you've been able to bring on the show and what that experience has been like? There's so many. Javan, Keitano Veloso, Joberto Gio, John Bosco,

Marizamonte, Selle, so many. The list is very large. Yes. Milton Nacimento, the ones who I always were listening to Egbert's Jesus.

Monti, Amiton de Orlando, Yamandu Costa, and the list goes on. Do you have any remarkable stories that come to mind from one particular interview, maybe something that stands out? Yeah, you know, it was beautiful interviewing Tom Jobin, he in Los Angeles, some years back. It was very casual and very beautiful. You know, these people are so important to me, to many. of us and getting to know them and more about their music and career has been always very

important. Logged to interview the Javan when he first came to L.A., Ivan L.A., Ivan Lins, and special moments and special stories. You know, Tom Jobbain saying that Boussanova became this huge thing, that in Brazil, everything became Bossa Nova. refrigerators, utensils, and everything, was nothing happening at the time. And, of course, Jobin went beyond Bossa Nova, you know, writing other styles of music, like Waters of Marches, not Bossa Nova, Boto, and Borzegin.

He loved orchestration. He was a great arranger. So getting to know more about their life and career was always, has been always very important. I actually wanted to circle back to that point you made about Thonjo being growing out into different genres out of Bossa Nova. How did that musical development come about for him and his development as an artist? Being always liked besides Brazilian music, the popular music, classical music, and he loved orchestrations. So he would not only be writing Bossa Novelas, but love to arrange for orchestras. and some of it, even like songs, compositions that are close to classical music with orchestras. He loved, he was a great arranger as well, besides being a great composer. And Rubin also loved the language, you know, the Portuguese language, English language. If you look at the waters of March, he wrote both for Portuguese and English.

So he was very much into language and literature, very much into nature, concerned with the preservation of the Atlantic forest in Brazil. He lived near Jardin Botanical, Botanical Garden. He usually would go for walks and enjoy the environment, the birds. He was a very special person. How do you think that approach to nature impacted his songwriting? approach of nature to his songwriting or in general. To the lyrics that he wrote, because I've noticed that a lot of Basanova music tends to celebrate nature. Yeah, he was very much into nature.

He eventually moved away from the real center and was living in a place that was very beautiful with the nature. surrounded him. I think that was very much part of his life and as well as his music. When he moved, when he was living in New York, the most important thing for him was to be near nature. So he was like next to the, what is the name of that large park? Central Park? Yes, he had to be living next to Central Park, to open his window and see the beautiful nature. So that was the way he was.

For those tuning in, you're listening to MP Beats with Erica Kaiba. We are interviewing Sergio Melanchin right now of the Brazilian Radio Hour, and we were just talking about Ton Jobin, Tom Jobin, who is known as one of the fathers of the Basanova movement. Would you say that that's correct? Exactly, yes.

Jobin, John Gilberto, Carlos Lira, Roberto Menescal. But Jobin was one of the precursors of Bosanova in Brazil and the world. He became immensely known around the world as well. Yes. Don Jobin and John Gilbert collaborated, isn't that correct? How did that collaboration come about? Because that was huge. Yeah, the first album by John Gilbert was,

arranged produced by Tom Jobi there were colleagues and friends you know John Juberto came up with that

Bosa Nova style for guitar that really was a reference to what Bolsanova was to become in

Brazil and later in the world there were friends they worked together in many projects in 19 62, they went for the Bossa Nova concert at the Carnegie Hall. That's what I believe was when a lot of jazz musicians could see Bossa Nova lives

and experience the music and the musicians. So back to your question, yes, they were collaborated in many projects. You mentioned the concert at Carnegie Hall and suggesting at how Bossa Nova came to in international prominence. I was wondering if you have anything to say on why Bossa Nova has had such an international appeal? Because compared to some other developments in the Brazilian music, such as Tropicalia or modern Brazilian pop music or Brazilian rock, that hasn't had as far a reach as Bossa Nova.

So what do you think it is about that genre in particular that has attracted so much attention? Yeah, I think Bossa Nova, Bossa Nova became. very much close to jazz. I think jazz musicians could really identify, you know, music elements that they liked. The simplicity of melodies, the sophisticated harmony of Bossa Nova. Jazz musicians love to play Bossa Nova. Not only, still today, you keep on seeing like releases of Bossa Nova tunes, Bossa Nova-like tunes.

and I think it has to do with the quality of music. To those who know Portuguese, you know, the music, the lyrics are very important in Brazil because Bossa Nova came about around the late 50s and 60s. That was the music of the youth of Rio de Janeiro. It was a very nice, very, very good. progressive, very optimistic, I would say type of music. If you go

before Bousanova, music tend to be heavier, you know, the songs, the lyrics. But Boussanova brought about a new feeling for the music of Brazil. And remember Brazil was up, you know, it was

in 60 we had the new capital of Brazil in Brazil, 58 you had the World Cup. So things were like very bright and happening. And Bossa Nova was very much part of it, was the background music of Brazilians at the time. Well, thank you so much, Sajju. Once again, you are listening to MP Beats on Radio Free Hillsdale,

and we have had with us, Sadju Milnecchenko of the Brazilian Radio Hour. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an honor. It's my pleasure. Nice being with you, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation as much. as I did. So take care. So in that interview, we talked a lot about Tonjo Binh, one of the fathers of Basanova, one of the greats. So I thought, with all of that context that we now have in mind, if we could listen to a song

together, it's called Chega de Saudadji, it's one of Tonjoubing's more famous songs, and it uses this word Saudadja. Sao Daegia is a word that's very hard to translate into English. There's not really an equivalent word, but what it means is to be in the state of, of missing someone or something. In this case, it applies to a relationship. A man is singing to a former lover, and he's saying, like, enough of this sadagie of missing her. He wants to get her back. He says, I want to finish with this business of you living without me. And that's the message of the song. It is a get her back song. So with all that said, let's take a listen to it. I hope you

My prece that she'll regress because I don't much Maudsue by Ton Jobing. We are about

to shift gears into our next interview. Somebody who can give us a little bit of a different perspective on Brazilian music,

kind of coming at it from the angle of somebody who grew up in the United States but fell in love with Brazilian music and currently plays

for a Brazilian music collective. Let's dive right in. You're listening to MP Beats on Radio Free Hillsdale. I'm Erica Kaiba, and I'm joined today by Kyle Kanjar of Kansjadjaboa, a Brazilian music collective based in Detroit. How you doing, Kyle? I'm doing great, thank you. Thanks for joining us.

If you could tell us the story, how did Kulsa Jiboa come to be? So Kansja J-Boa, I got into Brazilian music, a while ago when I was, you know, quite younger, a while in college. And then I studied music at Wayne State. And I was a classical guy, but I always, I would play in jazz combos. And I went back for my master's, and I did a jazz combo, and we decided to just do Brazilian music, because that's what I was really into. And we came up with the name there.

So that was 2017, 18, but it was a different name. So we're playing under a name called a Cambio. And then about 2019, I work up in Flint at a music school. And this trumpet teacher started working their name, Eduardo. Uh-huh. And he, I said, oh, you're Brazilian. You got to play in my group, man. You got to play me.

He says, yeah, he's a fantastic trumpet player. And he goes, you should call it conjure de Boa because your last name. And I was like, what is Kanja was Kanja? and he kind of said to me in passing, and then I was looking it up, and Kanja's like just a, it's a soup. Like you make, like, a chicken soup is Kanja G. G. Gallo, or so whatever it is. But it's also like a little musical show. And I saw some interviews with some, like, Brazilian musicians talk about, oh, I'm going to do a little kanja here.

Let me show you a little. So it was this play on, like, mixing, like making a good soup. And, you know, and, you know, and, you know, an actual show. And so it stuck from there. I was like, okay, I get it. And then his whole thing, he goes, your last name's Kanjar, it's Kanjar. I was like, all right, that's clever. That's tight. Yeah. What originally got you into Brazilian music? Yeah. So like I said, I was doing classical in my undergrad. And when I first went to Wayne State, my teacherly diamond, he taught me this piece of music.

Prelude 1 It's a solo guitar piece by Haitor Vio Lobos Which is a really famous composer And he's from like early 1900s Kind of one of those Postmodern composers Well I just loved it

And so I said okay What other Brazilian composers are there And then I came across this piece Called Batukada by Izay Asavio It's a solo guitar piece And I loved it And I was like well what's Batucata

Right? when you interpret music, you try and learn about the name. And I was like, oh, that's a full-on drum section. Like, oh, he's trying to sound like these drums section. And so I started like listening just to more like Brazilian music rather than classical guitar pieces. And then as I was saying to you, before we started, I started listening to this. It was Brazilian Beats podcast. And he put me on to a lot of stuff.

Samba, you know, recordings from 70, 80s, 90s. That's where Javan, all these fantastic recordings, an artist that I was sleeping on. And I loved it so much because the rhythmic element, that's what I was just fascinated by the rhythms. And plus, they used a lot of nylon string guitar. And I play classical on nylon string guitar. So I was like, oh, this is a really great, you know, something I'm like instantly hooked. on when I'm listening to it. And it kind of, you know, plays into what I already kind of do.

So, yeah, that podcast, and then I started buying up Brazilian records. I bought this great one, this compilation by David Byrne of the Talking Heads. I got in my basement. I'm not going to go look it up, but it's a compilation that he put on, like, Catano Vilozo, Giobarto Gilles, you know, some, there's Luis Gonzaga on there. when they do Azavs,

broncas. So then I was just like, oh my gosh, this, I love all this music. All this music is great. So is that, was that a cover

that Talking Heads did of those songs? That was that compilation. He just, it was David Byrne. He just released an album of Brazilian artists. Oh, very cool.

His favorite. Yeah. So it wasn't him. This record wasn't him covering him, but he does records where he, covers a lot of Brazilian stuff.

And we actually like take his arrangements for like for the Azas Broncas, the White Wings, the Louise Gonzaga song. We do it very similar to how he's recorded it. But yeah, he's a, he loves Brazilian music. And the more you research it, everybody loves Brazilian music. You know, David Byrne is talking heads. I love talking heads. You know, Quincy Jones, this was maybe a few, just a few years back.

It was an interview in Rolling Stone, and he was talking about the importance of Brazilian music and how musicians really need to dig into that because a lot of the rhythmic element, just studying it makes you a stronger musician, a better musician, your feel of music gets, like, well improved, you know what I'm saying? So all these things I was seeing were like all these signs would point towards, like, check out this Brazilian music. This is something you really like and really interesting. And other people are, you know, confirming that, hey, this is good music that is well worth studying and taking some time with and like digging and checking it out more than, you know,

hearing it on the radio. And then you're on to the next thing. If you're tuning in, you're listening to MP Beats on Radio Free Hillsdale. I'm your host, Erica, joined by Kyle Kanjar. Kyle, I want to go back to what you said about the rhythmic patterns in Brazilian music going on to influence musicians across the world. To a non-musician, how would you explain what's so distinctive about the rhythmic patterns in Brazilian music that make it so unique and influential? Well, I attributed to the African influence in Brazilian music. you know, just like if you think of Louisiana, New Orleans,

you know, that's where a lot of our United States music styles came out of New Orleans. And that was a very same story. It was influenced by African music, you know, and Congo Square was the only place African slaves could play music on Sundays. That's where other musicians started hearing these rhythms

and started kind of singing in them, taking, you know, music of the time or, you know, marches or whatever and singing it with that little rhythmic, I'll call it like a swing, a flavor, a feel, and, you know, transforming. Brazil has such a similar story, too, and I think an even stronger one because, you know, if we think about the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil got 40 to 45% of the slaves, right? some, you know, there's people who say 40% and 5% seen as far as 45. So a very, very

strong presence of African slaves. And they, Portuguese were bringing them over from a lot of different parts of Africa, but there was a lot that came out of West Africa out of Nigeria. You know, so

there's a lot of strong flavor. And, you know, I think that flavor is, that I don't know, flavors the word I should be using that tradition is probably a better word was preserved and it kind of came through and went to different styles of music.

So to me it's so interesting because, you know, it came up and became jazz here and then took its own spin down there. It went off and it became samba. You know, it became all these, and samba became these other things and there was this type of samba and that type of samba. And then there are all these variations.

Yeah, so I'll say that. It's the African influence. And specifically this idea of how you group beats. So usually we group beats, we count one, two, three, four. And this style, you feel a lot of groupings of one, two, three, and then one, two, one, two. So, like, it adds up to four or to eight. but it isn't like a boring don, don, don, don, don, don, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don't, don, don't, don't, don't, so it feels, it feels off, but then it's on, you know what I mean?

It's, it's, it's, I'm not doing a good job, it's playing it. No, no, I think I get what you're saying, the irregular rhythmic patterns. Yeah, they're not so, it's not like, I said a mark. parts like it up, down, up down, one, two, one, two. I mean, that is there in the lower part of the drums and the surto drums, but on top of it there are these really these rhythms that just sound off, but then they line up. So there's this kind of tension of like, okay, is it wrong? No, and then it gets right.

Well, thank you so much for joining us, Kyle. You're listening to MP Beats on Radio Free Hill Sail 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, and we've just been hearing from the experts about what makes Brazilian music so unique. But now I want to transition into the personal side of things, what it's like to encounter this music as a non-expert, just regular person. It's time for the band pick of the week. This week's band that we're going to be focusing on is Lesing Urbana, probably my favorite band of all time. Urbana was formed in the 1980s. It consisted of Henato Hussu, who was on vocals, bass, and keyboards, Dao Villa Lobos on guitar, and Marcel Bonfa on drums. Henato Hussu wrote a lot of the lyrics for

the songs that the band was producing, and he was just an absolute poet, the amount of meaning, the amount of social political commentary that he was able to pack into those songs, and just broader reflections on life. There's a lot of melancholy. This isn't necessarily always just happy, happy, happy, party, party music. There's a lot. There's a lot there's a lot to unpack. But definitely very rewarding and also just lovely to listen to. It's not

necessarily a downer to listen to it. Henato Hoso is not your conventional boy crush, making all the girls swoon front man of a rock band. There were other bands at the time. There was one called RIPMI and Barang Vermel where the lead singers of the band were basically

built to attract the crowds of screaming women. But Hanato Hussu was not somebody who played into that. This is not to say that he's an unattractive man, but the way that he carried himself, it wasn't necessarily in a way that he was trying to garner all this attention

or kind of like wink at the audience, like you get it with some other bands or show off his physique. Hanato Housso didn't do any of that. He would go on stage, and if you look at recordings of songs like Tinkupe Gildo, like there's this one particular that's quite famous, and he's really getting into it,

and he's hunching over the microphone and he's contorting into himself and he's like grasping the handle of the microphone. And it's not really a show. Like you if you watch a lot of singers perform, it's a very outward moment and they're jumping up and down and they're trying to get the crowd involved. And al-pahuso, it turns inward most of the time. He's focusing on the music and he's really getting into it himself. I think when you watch and perform it invites you to do that yourself, which is interesting because it makes it more about the content of the song and a personal experience with it, than it is about show and spectacle, which is not to critique show and spectacle.

Show and spectacle can be great. But that's definitely that inward contemplation that you're invited to when you listen to Lijingudana songs, I think is something that really made it stick for me. I credit my journey with Lijing would have been a beginning with my cousin Gustavo. My cousin Gustavu was 13 years old when I was born. And if you have a lot of older cousins, you know how that relationship can grow and evolve over time. When I was about seven, eight years old, he would pretend to be a skeleton a lot of the time and chase me around the house.

And that was all the entertainment I needed. But then, as you get older, your relationships with people start to shift and evolve. You find common interests. My common interest with Gustavo ended up being music. So I remember one time I was a middle schooler. I was just hanging out, sitting on the couch. Gustavo was in his room.

He was playing the guitar, learning some new songs. He liked to sing. He comes out. He sees me. He's like, Erica, come here. I want to show you something. So I come to his room and he's like, do you want to sing with me? And I was like, yes, of course I do. And that's when he starts teaching me these rock songs that he's into. A lot of them were American rock songs that we learned at first. So he was really into the red hot chili peppers. I learned how to sing that. And so I always look back on those times fondly as the moment where we really became friends, where we discovered something that we liked to do together, something that we liked to do together, something that we were able to talk about, and it wasn't just the relationship that you would have between a teenager babysitting, a little kid. It was something that we could kind of come together as equals and just talk about the music and how we were experiencing it. So one day, Gustavo asked me, are you up for learning a new song? I am always up for learning a new song. And that's the day where he shows me, Tempo Perjidu by Lesion Urbana for the first time. Tempo perjidu is a song. It means lost time and it kind of meditates on that theme throughout. It's about this paradox, this tension

between time moving so quickly and always slipping away from us, but at the same time we have all this time ahead of us. We have all these opportunities in front of us. How do we make use of that? How do we go forward and not focus so much on missed opportunities? How do we take these opportunities that are still before us? So the first clip that I ever saw of this was I mentioned earlier how Hanato Huso has this famous clip where he's kind of turning it. inward and he's grabbing the microphone. He's just getting really into the song. That was my first exposure ever to Lesheng Urbana to this specific song. And so it immediately intrigued me the way that Henatu Hussu was singing. And also it was just a really lovely song. If you take a listen to

the beginning of the song, you can see that it has this really magical vibe to it. And you can also see how somebody who plays the guitar like my cousin would be immediately attracted to it and kind of want to learn how to play it. Because it's so interesting and unique. Let's take a listen to it right now. And there you have it in those first few lines, the tension between the lost time and the time ahead of us. He says, "'Toldus days, when I'm not thinking more the time that's time of the world. And that translates to every day when I wake up, I no longer have the time that's passed me by, but I have so much time. We have all the time in the world. And if you're just tuning in,

you are listening to MP Beats on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your your host, Erica Kaiba, talking about the song, Tempo Peridido by Legion Urbana, my favorite song of all time. You'll find that the song is also quite romantic. Throughout the song, the Teanato Russo is singing to a specific person. And so you get really romantic lines such as these. The meaning of that part, when he says, "'Bea the sun this mania so cinza, the tempestade that "'chege the color of your eyes castanos. So me abraza forte, me says, my time that's just time we're just done just to

what that means literally is look at the sun from this dark gray morning, the coming storm is the same color as your dark brown eyes so hug me closely and tell me one more time that we're far away from everything when I was in middle school I was like this is the most romantic

thing I have ever heard and that was the first kind of charm of the song for me I started adding it to all my playlists I would swoon when I listened to it I was like oh I want to love like this And it is quite a romantic song. But there's also more there, and that's something that I came to appreciate when I got older. So, for example, you get to hear different sides of the songs with lyrics such as these.

These are the lyrics that he addresses to his lover right after the part that we just listened to. The part that became really meaningful for me as I got older. What he repeats three times in the beginning there is we have our own time. And at first, I would only listen to that part in the context of what he's saying. in his romantic relationship. He's like, okay, well, we don't have to rush or to worry about anything because we just, we have our own time. And then as I got older, I kind of was thinking about this in a very broader context when he says we have our own time. Maybe that means we all have our own time, just on the individual level. This is a lyric that became really relevant to me as I was

in late high school and early college. There were there a lot of things that are up in the air, things that are uncertain in the future. And you can be very tempted to worry about that if you're in that phase, like, oh, what's going to end up becoming of me? What is my destiny? What this song communicated to me in that phase of my life was that you don't have to worry so much about knowing all the details of how your story is going to go, because everything is going to happen in its own time. Then you've got that later lyric where he says, No, I'm not afraid of the dark, but leave the lights on right now. Okay, when I first heard that, I was a little bit confused by it. I was like, okay,

What's he trying to say there? He's not afraid of the dark, but he wants the lights on anyway. What is that trying to communicate? Although at the same time, I always felt like a little bit of sympathy towards it. Because as a child, I had been very afraid of the dark, and I remember that feeling of just wanting the lights to stay on a little bit longer. And I think that we, thinking about it more, I don't think we ever really lose that as adults,

because you think about it. What are you afraid of in the dark? You're not afraid of the dark itself. You're afraid of what could be in the dark, afraid of what you don't know. So when you're lying in bed as a child, you imagine monsters under the bed, you imagine ghosts. And so if you can at least keep the lights on,

you can see everything that's around you. When you turn the lights off, you're kind of surrendering yourself to the dark, to which you don't know. And we do this as adults all the time, because every time we're moving into a new phase in life, we're kind of just stumbling around in the dark. We don't really know what's ahead of us.

We don't really know all the threats, but also the joys that there might be. And so that's where that lyric kind of started to turn for me as I got older. I was like, wow, this childish fear of the dark never really leaves you because you're going to just encounter it in new ways and you have to make the courageous choice to kind of to do that, to go forward in the dark and navigate your life. But then at the same time, maybe there are, maybe there are times when it's okay to say, you know what, like I want to leave the lights on right now.

I just want to be in a place where I can understand what's happening. And I think for the singer, like, that's what the relationship that he's in represents for him. There's a lot that's uncertain about life, but he's in love with this person. And that's what he can be sure about. That's what where the light is. That's what he understands. But, yeah, those two themes of A, kind of facing the unknown in life and, like, not being sure about what's to come. but B, also having trust in that your destiny is going to take the shape that it's supposed to take,

that's something that deeply resonated with me as I got older. And that's what's so great about this song. If you keep revisiting it as you get older and you reach different faces of your life, it starts to mean different things to you. And I'm sure that when I go back in a few years from now, and I'm at somewhere else in life, I'll listen to it and I'll learn something new about it. And maybe when you listen to these lyrics, you're hearing something totally different. You're gathering a meaning from it that applies to your own life that I'm not seeing as I listen to it.

And so that's why I really encourage people, if you're going to go out and listen to Leshing-Urbunas songs, that you look up the English translation of the lyrics because the lyrics are just, they're so meaningful. And they just have so much to say about life. And Hanato Hussu just, he thinks so deeply. you can see that in all of his lyrics. And so that's why, yes, I really recommend looking at the song also from a lyrical perspective, because there's so much richness there. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of MP Beats on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, signing off till next week.