Music, that universal way of saying. Greater heritage of a culture, a people, a country. For those who dream of getting to know Portugal or to accompany you as they discover our country, this is the selection I want to share with you.
First of all, a clarification. This is a playlist that does not obey any chronology or criteria, apart from the very obvious one which is being Portuguese. It does reflect a purely personal choice and my feeling for Portuguese music. The one I think it makes sense to share with you. I will certainly leave out great themes and great performers. It is a representative selection of various styles, various eras and various voices. There is a common link, they all contain a very Lusitanian DNA, very authentic, very much ours.
Music is emotion, feeling, connection. I lived a few (quite) years outside of Portugal, in a context where many days went by without speaking or writing a single word in Portuguese (the long and frequent phone calls, at that time, still meant exorbitant bills at the end of the month and were that reason more contained) and in that period, I found myself feeling a greater need to listen to Portuguese music, to relate through its melody and its words with the soul of my country. And music gave me just that: the feeling of belonging, the comfort of feeling at home, even from a distance.
Sometimes music is also the bittersweet taste of nostalgia.
Forcibly, the music keeps pace with time. From traditional songs to popular music, from classical to light, from rock to pop, from jazz to rap, from fado to intervention music – each song, each style, in its own way, marks in us an era, a period of life, a milestone or even a revolution.
I’m not going to present the history of each of these songs here or explain why I chose them. That would be too long and cumbersome an exercise for the task I set myself. The aim is that through these creations, each of you can feel a little of the soul of Portuguese culture. It is interesting to feel the depth, joy, melancholy, strength, sadness, hope, life or love that each of these songs carries within itself. And I’m sure that, even if we don’t understand the meaning of the words, we manage to be touched by the strength and beauty of each of these choices.
This is a playlist with which I imagine myself traveling through Portugal, listening to it loud and clear while crossing mountains, while contemplating valleys, crossing plains under a golden sun or while gliding beside the infinite blue of the Atlantic coast. My choices, as felt as they are subjective. My list, which is now yours too.
*Written by Alexandra Santos
