Gavin Roy se diz um apaixonado pela banda e já planeja a próxima tradução
Os brasileiros estão mais do que acostumados a ouvir versões nacionais de grandes sucessos internacionais. Bandas como Calcinha Preta, que transformou canções como Making Love Out of Nothing at All (original do Air Supply) na emocionante Como Fui Me Apaixonar, e Aviões do Forró, que adaptou inúmeros hits internacionais para o forró eletrônico, são apenas alguns exemplos dessa cultura nacional. Seja no sertanejo, no rock ou no axé, as adaptações de músicas estrangeiras fazem parte da cultura musical do país. Mas e se fizéssemos o caminho inverso? Já imaginou ouvir sua música brasileira favorita traduzida para o inglês?
Gavin Roy, criador de conteúdo e professor, realizou a tradução da icônica canção “Faroeste Caboclo”, de Renato Russo, para o inglês. A canção, que narra a história de João de Santo Cristo, oferece um enredo profundo e vívido, tornando-se uma excelente ferramenta para quem quer aprender inglês de forma descontraída, mas envolvente.
Ao cumprir a missão impossível de traduzir, gravar o vídeo e manter a essência cultural, Gavin enfrentou o desafio de manter a musicalidade da letra original em português, ao mesmo tempo em que respeitava a estrutura da língua inglesa. “A tradução começou de forma bem analítica. Eu fiz a tradução ao pé da letra no lado esquerdo de um caderno, depois fui para o lado direito e comecei a adaptar, tentando manter a mesma entonação e as pausas de Renato Russo, além de fazer as rimas funcionarem em inglês”, explica o professor. Apesar de ter feito uma versão anterior cantada em português com sotaque americano, para ele, o maior desafio foi se familiarizar com a música em português antes de traduzi-la, o que exigiu entender profundamente o ritmo e a narrativa.
Desafios na tradução
Manter a métrica em uma versão traduzida é um desafio e tanto, segundo Gavin, foi difícil manter o fluxo narrativo. “Algumas partes em inglês acabaram sendo mais curtas que em português, então precisei criar algo para preencher, como na parte onde ele fala sobre roubar as senhorinhas da igreja. Em inglês, o verso quase não cabia, então adicionei ‘from all the lovely lowly little ladies in their lace’ para manter a ideia de uma pequena capela nordestina e dar uma aliteração interessante”.
Ele também destaca que algumas palavras e expressões em português não tem tradução exata em inglês, como “comer”, que na canção original tem um duplo sentido em português, mas que não se aplica da mesma forma em inglês. Essas nuances culturais tornam o processo de tradução uma verdadeira arte, não apenas linguística, mas também emocional.
Além de trabalhar o lado técnico da tradução, Gavin destaca que o maior aprendizado ao traduzir músicas como “Faroeste Caboclo” é o cultural. “Quando você aprende um idioma ouvindo música, não é só sobre aprender a gramática ou o vocabulário. É sobre sentir a emoção da música, entender as expressões culturais e como elas se conectam ao idioma”. Para ele, cantar junto e se entregar à melodia é uma das formas mais poderosas de aprender o idioma e a pretensão para o futuro é criar uma versão da música “Eduardo e Mônica”.
Letra da canção em Inglês:
No, he held nothing back, that John of Santo Cristo’s what everyone would verify when from the path he strayed.
He left behind him all the boredom of the farmland just to feel the seething hatred in his blood that Jesus made.
As a kid he only dreamt of being a thief and even more so when a soldier shot his father in the head.
He was the terror of the prairie where he lived, and when he went to school the teachers were the ones that learned instead.
He went to church but just to steal the alms collected from all the lovely lowly little ladies in their lace.
Honest to God he knew that he was something special – that godforsaken wilderness was simply not his place.
He wanted out so he could go and see the ocean and all the other stuff that he’d seen on TV.
He saved up money so he finally could get goin’, and of his own volition said, “Hey, it’s just me.”
He screwed with all the little girls of the city playing doctor; he was expert by the time that he hit twelve.
Got sent to juvie by the time he hit fifteen, where his hatred only grew the further into hell he’d delve.
He didn’t understand the way the world worked – discrimination based on being black or white or rich or poor.
He got fed up trying to come up with the answers, and so he bought a one-way ticket straight to Salvador.
Rolling into town he went to grab a coffee and he ran across a cattle driver who would say
He’d bought a ticket already and was gonna have to skip the whole damn trip, but John saved him in a way.
He was sayin’, “I was headin’ for Brasília. There is no finer place the country wide.
But I really need to stay to see my daughter. How ‘bout I hang back and you can take my ride.”
And John accepted the proposal, and on a bus he rolled to Planalto Central.
He was crazy ‘bout the city, and departing from the terminal he saw the Christmas lights and decked out halls.
“My God, but what a gorgeous city! I’ll start working once the new year’s in full swing, ah!”
Harvesting wood as a carpenter’s apprentice, made a hundred grand per month in Taguatinga.
He’d hit the red-light district every single Friday spending all the hard-earned money of a harder working lad.
And he bumped shoulders with a lot of shifty rollers, including a lost bastard grandson of his great granddad,
A Peruvian who was living in Bolivia and brought back tons of shady shit from there.
His name was Pablo, and he would declare he’d hatch a new plan to start to sell his ware.
And Santo Cristo worked himself into the ground, but all the money somehow wasn’t quite enough to even eat.
Back home at seven he would hear the same old newscast always saying that the government would keep him on his feet.
But he was over all the empty talk, and he decided, just like Pablo, he would make do on his own.
He then discussed the sacred details one more time, and remaining quite uncrucified the seeds were quickly sown.
Right away, all the crazies of the city heard the little piece of news: “That there’s some good dope!”
And John of Santo Cristo soon was loaded, and he started down the dealers’ slippery slope.
He made friends and visited the Asa Norte and hit up all the rock parties to unreel.
But of a sudden, under the influence of one of his comrades in the city, he began to steal.
The very first holdup he screwed it up and for the first time headed straight to hell on the fast-track:
Brutal violence and raping of his body; “You’re gonna see – I’m gonna get you back.”
And now our Santo Cristo was a gangster in the city, feared and fearless in Distrito Federal.
He had no fear at all of any boss man, policeman, drug-dealer, captain, playboy or highbrow.
‘Twas then our hero chanced to meet a girl, and for all his sins committed he right there repented.
Maria Lucy was a stunning little thing, and Santo Cristo promised his whole heart to her and meant it.
He told Maria that he wanted to get married, and rebegan the workin’ wood he used to.
“Maria Lucy, I’ll love you for forever, and I even wanna have a kid with you.”
The time went by. One day a guy came to the door, an older man, a one-percenter with some cash in hand,
And he made a less than noble proposition, and from John wanted an answer, an answer his demand.
“I don’t drop pipebombs in sidewalk magazine stands nor in elementary schools – I won’t do that, no!
And I won’t protect no goddamn ten-star general who sits behind his big ol’ desk, scared shitless, bro.
And it’d be better if you got the hell away and never messed with any Pisces, Scorpio ascendant!”
But before he left, the old man with a look of hatred back said, “You’re a dead man, you’ve just killed yourself, my friend.”
“You’re a dead man, you’ve just killed yourself, my friend. You’re a dead man, you’ve just killed yourself, my friend…
There’s ten words I’ll never get out of my head! I’m gonna suffer consequences in the end…”
It’s not that Santo Cristo had it all right; his whole future wasn’t alright and he didn’t work for days.
He got hammered and one day while on a bender he found out that there was someone different working in his place.
He spoke with Pablo that he wanted an accomplice and had money and was wanting either way to arm himself.
Pablo would smuggle contraband out of Bolivia and Santo Cristo in Planaltina’d help resell.
But then it happened that a guy named Jeremiah, another smuggler with a reputation, came on scene.
It wasn’t long ‘til Santo Cristo’s plans he knew, and he decided that this John needed to be blasted clean.
But Pablo carried a Winchester Twenty-Two, and Santo Cristo had already learned to shoot.
But he decided that he’d use it only after Jeremiah was the first to make a move.
Jeremiah, shameless pothead that he was arranged the rager and made sure that everyone knew how to play.
He assaulted the innocent young girls and claimed to be a true believer, but he hadn’t learned to pray.
And Santo Cristo hadn’t come home in a lifetime, and the longing started getting to his head.
“I’m outta here, Imma see Maria Lucy. I think it’s high time that the two of us were wed.”
Then getting home he moaned and for the second time he got a taste of hell straight from the devil’s cup:
To Maria Lucy Jeremiah’d gotten married, and he already had knocked her up.
Santo Cristo was only pure hatred inside, so he challenged Jeremiah to a duel.
“Two o’clock PM tomorrow in Ceilândia, right in front of Lot Fourteen, that’s where I’ll be, fool!
And take your pick, any weapon that you want, ‘cuz either way I’ll blow your brains out you bastard double-crosser.
I’ll also be killing that dumb bitch Maria Lucy, who I loved right up ‘til I lost her.”
And Santo Cristo had no clue how to react when he saw the cable TV network crews
And the reporters live-reporting on the duel giving the time, the place, the reason on the news.
Then two o’clock that Saturday arrived. Without delay, the gaping masses came to take the whole thing in.
A man hit Santo Cristo ‘fore he turned, aiming only at his back and then starting to grin.
And feeling the blood well in his throat, John gazed toward the little flags a-waving and the crowd enthralled.
He looked out at the vendors and the cameras and the people from TV, there to film it all.
And he remembered back to bein’ a little kid and to all the shit he’d lived through in his years.
And he definitively pulled himself together. “Since this mass became a circus, well I’m here.”
His eyes filled with the blinding sunlight, and he recognized Maria Lucy coming to.
She had brought the very gun his cousin Pablo had given him, the Winchester Twenty-Two.
“Jeremiah, I’m a man, it’s something you will never be; I don’t take aim at no one’s back, oh no.
Look over there you worthless, smug son of a bitch; look at my blood spilled on the ground and let your own guilt start to flow.”
And Santo Cristo with the Winchester Twenty-Two, he pumped five bullets in that traitor paragon.
Maria Lucy begged forgiveness only after, and died together with her new protector, John.
And the people would declare that this here John of Santo Cristo was a saint because he died with glory.
And the city’s upper class and bourgeoisie did not believe in all the stories that they saw on the TV.
And our John he never ended up with anything he came for in Brasília, running from the devil.
All that he wanted was to vent directly with the president to help all the people that he makes…
Suffer!