Music Video Monday: Marisa Monte – Doce Vampiro
Original Intro
The music video is spawned from short films and can be as creative if not more so than their predecessor. Far too often it does just become singing heads. I want to try and buck that trend and find ones both new and old that do something somewhat outside the box, at the very least have some sort of visual narrative.
Updated Intro
It’s been a while since I’ve posted something in this category and it wasn’t a feature that ever became very regular and I want to try to remedy that. So for now the plan it to post this feature once monthly.
Marisa Monte – Doce Vampiro (Live)
This is a live performance music video which makes it different from any previous selection. However, there is some visual intrigue in this video the smoke hanging in the shafts of stage-light paired with the dissolves make it play more like seafoam than smoke.
Costuming, lighting, and performance are in perfect synchronicity here in aesthetic terms. It’s also a cover of a song by the recently deceased queen of (Brazilian) Rock n’ Roll Rita Lee. Lee was an influence on Marisa Monte and many other Brazilian vocalists and artists (myself included I’ve included two versions of a poem I wrote in Lee’s memory beneath the video).
Ode a o Que Rita Trouxe
by Bernardo Villela
I
O Barão Vermelho me trouxe
Os jardins suspendidos de Babilônia
E me disse que ela lhes construiu.
Mas só ela, mesmo, podia trazer
Os Beatles para português
E devolver-los ao inglês.
Só ela, obviamente, podia ser rebelde
e também ter a ternura para dar-nos le
Premiere bonheur du jour tão angelical como Françoise Hardy.
Só ela, claro, podia macumbar
Batman numa batucada tanto
indígena quanto psicodélico.
Só ela podia cantar
lento sobre as pessoas
na sala de jantar.
II
“Ainda não havia para mim Rita Lee
A tua mais completa tradução”
As Caetano wrote and sang astutely.
Que me comove agora
Mais do que nunca
Vendo como Rita falava português e inglês
Entre outros idiomas.
Dizem que Pessoa
Era tão bom como poeta por causa
Da proficiência dele em inglês.
Isso pode ser porque Lee
Brincou liricamente tão facilmente
Desmontando e combinando
Palavra portuguese semelhantes que
Outros levaram a toa.
Era uma noção
Assumido e sumido
(That was assumed and subsumed)
Nas mentes de muitos
(In the minds of many)
Our past years together passed by hurriedly
(Nossos anos juntos passaram apressados)
And now without your so-called rock-in-role
(E agora sem seu tal de roque enrow)
I walk rather switched off
(Ando meio desligado)
Undo may-ooh dis-league ah-doo
Ode to What Rita Brought
by Bernardo Villela
I
The Red Baron brought me
the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
And told me she built them.
But only she, really, could bring
The Beatles into Portuguese
And then get them back into English.
Only she, obviously, could be edgy
yet tender enough to give us the day’s
first hour as angelically as Françoise Hardy.
Only she, clearly, could macumbar
Batman to a drumline both
indigenous and psychedelic.
Only she could sing
Slow about the people
in the dining room.
II
There is still is not for me Rita Lee,
Your complete translation
As Caetano wrote and sang astutely.
Which speaks to me now
More than ever
As Rita spoke Portuguese and English
Among other tongues.
It’s said that Pessoa
Was such a great poet because
Of his proficiency in English.
This might be why Lee
Played lyrically, so easily
Disassembling and combining
Similar Portuguese words that
Others took for granted.
It was a notion
Assumed and subsumed
(Que foi assumido e sumido)
In the minds of many
(Nas mentes de muitos)
Nossos anos juntos passaram apressados
(Our past years together passed by hurriedly)
E agora sem seu tal de roque enrow
(And now without your so-called rock-in-role)
Ando meio desligado
(I walk rather switched off)
Undo may-ooh dis-league ah-doo.
The Movie Rat 