Between samba steps and dictatorial beat: fissures and censorship in “Estado Novo” times

Abstract

The same song, based on the lyrics and music binomial, allows for different readings associated with various constellations of meaning. It is not an inert object, frozen in time and space, crystallized to the point of being impervious to meaning fluctuations and migrations. According to vocal, instrumental and visual performances that inform and form songs, these can, under certain circumstances, come to mean something their writers had not even imagined, thus configuring a dance of meanings. This also applies to the analysis of specific historical realities. The same object -in this case, the intertwining of "Estado Novo" and popular music- can be understood under different analytical lights, depending, to a great extent, on the theoretical contributions and research methods that we hold on to as anchors in carrying out our research. From this perspective, monological habits are by no means reliable compasses when we seek to account for the dialectical character of political relations and musical artifacts. That is what this text is about, as it walks once more the much trodden ground of the Estado Novo dictatorship to surprise the existence of discursive practices that call into question certain traditional assumptions of the widely disseminated historiography about that period. After all, in addition to collecting silences and/or confining themselves to the role of echo chambers of the "State-uttered word," other voices, discordant or dissonant, also made themselves heard at that time despite the censorship that weighed on them, stifling them.