Tourada

About

Tourada was written in 1973 by Fernando Tordo (music) and the poet José Carlos Ary dos Santos (lyrics). It won the Festival RTP da Canção on 26 February 1973 and represented Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg, finishing tenth.

The lyric uses a bullfight as a satire of the Estado Novo. The arena fills with moralising businessmen, snobs and tourists; the "Praça da Primavera" nods at Marcello Caetano's Marcelist Spring, a renaming of the dictatorship rather than a change. The chorus ("Nós vamos pegar o mundo pelos cornos da desgraça") reads as a call to take the country by the horns. Tordo and Ary were surprised the censors let it through. The Carnation Revolution followed a year later.

1973

Fernando Tordo at the Festival RTP da Canção, the performance that took Tourada to Eurovision:

2019, with Capicua

In 2019 Tordo remade the song with Porto rapper Capicua for the album Duetos, Diz-me Com Quem Cantas. He had not met her. He had heard her work after they both received awards from the Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores, and wanted a rap verse on a song that had already become a piece of recent Portuguese history. She was pregnant and recording in Porto, so the verse was cut remotely. The album came out on 22 March 2019.

Lyrics

Words by José Carlos Ary dos Santos. English is a reading translation, after Carlos Martinez.

Portuguese

Não importa sol ou sombra
Camarotes ou barreiras
Toureamos ombro a ombro as feras

Ninguém nos leva ao engano
Toureamos mano a mano
Só nos podem causar dano esperas

Entram guizos, chocas e capotes
E mantilhas pretas
Entram espadas, chifres e derrotes
E alguns poetas
Entram bravos, cravos e dichotes
Porque tudo o mais são tretas

Entram vacas depois dos forcados
Que não pegam nada
Soam brados e olés dos nabos
Que não pagam nada
E só ficam os peões de brega
Cuja profissão não pega

Com bandarilhas de esperança
Afugentamos a fera
Estamos na praça da Primavera

Nós vamos pegar o mundo
Pelos cornos da desgraça
E fazermos da tristeza graça

Entram velhas, doidas e turistas
Entram excursões
Entram benefícios e cronistas
Entram aldrabões
Entram marialvas e coristas
Entram galifões de crista

Entram cavaleiros à garupa
Do seu heroísmo
Entra aquela música maluca
Do passodoblismo
Entra a aficionada e a caduca
Mais o snobismo e cismo

Entram empresários moralistas
Entram frustrações
Entram antiquários e fadistas
E contradições
E entra muito dólar, muita gente
Que dá lucro aos milhões

E diz o inteligente que acabaram as canções

English

It does not matter, sun or shade
boxes or barriers
we fight the beasts shoulder to shoulder

Nobody takes us in
we fight hand to hand
only the waits can do us harm

In come rattles, cowbells and capes
and black mantillas
in come swords, horns and defeats
and a few poets
in come the brave, carnations and wisecracks
because everything else is a con

In come the cows after the forcados
who catch nothing
the shouts and olés of the yokels ring out
who pay nothing
and only the peões de brega are left
whose trade does not catch on

With banderillas of hope
we drive the beast away
we are in the square of Spring

We are going to take the world
by the horns of misfortune
and make of sadness a joke

In come old women, madwomen and tourists
in come coach parties
in come charity galas and columnists
in come con men
in come dandies and chorus girls
in come cocks with combs

In come horsemen riding pillion
on their own heroism
in comes that crazy music
of the paso doble
in come the aficionada and the doddering
plus the snobbery and the sulk

In come moralising businessmen
in come frustrations
in come antique dealers and fado singers
and contradictions
and in come a lot of dollars, a lot of people
who turn a profit in the millions

And the clever one says the songs are over