Because It's a Gray Day: Popular Music and Politics

There are days when it's very hard to concentrate on serious matters, not because the weather is inviting outside, but because it's not. So I've spent the morning watching an excellent two part documentary by the BBC about Brazilian popular music from samba to the Tropicalia movement.

While you'll find it hard not to keep from dancing, perhaps you'll also find two other things engaging. The first is the continued and continuing effort of Brazilians to make their weight felt in the world. The second is the way that popular music can express political sentiments that might not otherwise find a voice.

It's no accident that Robert Charlebois, whose career started in the same years that Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were making musical statements, exploded on the Quebec cultural map in the first heady time of national affirmation.