We've talked about the importance of lyrics before, but on a side topic: I've always hated english translations. It seems like vast amounts of context gets lost in translation.
So I tried something today. I took the lyrics to
Chega de Saudade and put them line by line into
google's Translator.
Of course you get the translation, but if you simply break up the sentences into fragments, sometimes singular words, you can get an idea of the all the other contexts usually lost. It also helps if you already know a romantic language (French for myself) - you can almost figure out the double and triple entendres.
Then putting everything back into context of the song, hear where the beats of the words rest in the bar lines. I use
Gal Costa's version for study. Jobim often has words bridging across barlines past downbeats. The lyric phrases overlap the musical phrases: Simply genius!
