A correct answer to a trivia question on Brazil Club USA's Facebook page led to a free copy of the new CD by international star Marisa Monte this week. I eventually would have gotten around to giving this album a listen -- it's her first in six years -- but a hearty obrigado to Brazil Club for making it happen sooner. This is a lush development of a sound she began cultivating with collaborators Arnaldo Antunes and Carlinhos Brown on their 2002 Tribalistas CD, though it's evolved quite a bit in the interim, and includes material that's much more diverse musically. There's the exuberance of the title track, echoes of Lennon-McCartney in "Depois", covers of tunes by MPB artists such as Andre Carvalho and Jorge Ben Jor, and a large number of originals created with Antunes and Brown that evoke that dreamy, texturally rich sound and the quiet -- almost restrained -- joy that I associate with Marisa Monte.
Released at the same time as "What You Really Want to Know" was a video for "Ainda Bem", an original tune from the album written with Antunes. In a cool stroke of genius, Marisa Monte chose Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion Anderson Silva as her dance partner for the video. So when we see it, we're watching a warrior display sensitivity, tenderness, and direction. I have not seen a more beautiful rendition of the interplay between masculine and feminine in a very long time.
A few years ago, in an interview, Marisa Monte, in response to complaints that she disliked answering questions about her personal life, said something like, "There's not much to know -- I'm just a regular person." Perhaps the album title's lyrics are a kind of sideways answer to curious fans -- an exhortation to pay attention to our own lives, and find freedom there -- or perhaps not. Either way, I found the Portuguese beautiful. My on-the-fly translation, even if it loses something, might come close:
Go with no direction
Go to be free
Sadness can't resist
Let your hair loose to the wind
Don't look back
Listen to the little noise that time makes
in your chest
Make your pain dance.
Be sure to listen
to this movement that brings peace
every leaf that falls
every cloud that passes
Hear the earth breathe
through the windows and doors of the houses
Be sure to listen
What you really want to know.
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