Planet Literature

On the Song O Teu Murmúrio (Your Murmur) by the Portuguese Band OqueStrada

The song O Teu Murmúrio (Your Murmur) by the Portuguese band OqueStrada is about the magic of love: its power to transform ourselves and the world by making us see life through different eyes.

Your Murmur1

Your murmur is what I desire.
You are the only thing I need in life.
You are the celebrated life.
Your silence I have wrapped in a cloth
and also the map of the incomparable ways
that you have opened up,
without any frills,
out of sight,
far from overheated paradises.

You know,
know very well:
Your murmur is what I desire.
You are the only thing I need in life.
You are the celebrated life.

You took care of me,
my forgotten reliquary,
my lost sweetness.
Sometimes silence is golden,
other times it’s silver,
several times of lead
and sometimes a forest.

You took care of me,
now I will take care of you.

You know,
know very well:
Your murmur is what I desire.
You are the only thing I need in life.
You are the celebrated life.
You are what I want to live for,
all day, all night.

You took care of me,
now I will take care of you.

And the rain, running comfortingly
around the lonely hearts
beyond the mountains
in Lisbon,
in Nazareth,
[in Évora2,
in Portimão3],
on the Minho4,
on the Guadiana5,
in Paris,
in Berlin,
in New York,
in Rio,
that’s all your murmur.

You know,
know very well:
You are what I want to live for,
all day, all night,
you shall be the only thing
worth living for,
the celebrated life,
all day, all night
I want to live for you,
my forgotten reliquary,
my lost sweetness,
my reliquary,
my sweetness,
that’s what your murmur means to me.

OqueStrada: O teu murmúrio from: Atlantic Beat – mad’in Portugal, 2014

Explanations:

(1) The lyrics are always slightly modified by the singer during performances.

(2) Évora: city in southern Portugal

(3) Portimão: port city in the Algarve region in southern Portugal

(4) Minho: river that rises in Galicia and marks the border between Spain and Portugal south of Vigo; a province of the same name is located in northwestern Portugal

(5) Guadiana: river in the south of Portugal that partly marks the border with Spain

Love as the Path to the Essence of Life

Those who love see the world with different eyes. Things open up and turn their deeper, more essential face to them. Little things, which they passed by carelessly before, are suddenly filled with meaning, and life can be experienced in all its abundance and beauty.

Thus, whoever loves recognizes love as the primordial ground of being, as that which holds life together and drives it forward, which creates and transforms it. The concrete You that has ignited love becomes a bridge to that other You from which everything arises: the World Soul, God, Brahman …

Living Love as a Celebration of Life

An echo of these sentiments can also found in the song O teu murmúrio (Your Murmur) by the Portuguese band OqueStrada (Street Orchestra). Everything that the ego encounters is shaped here by the You that it loves. But precisely because of this, everything that previously appeared purely material is suddenly animated and thus reveals itself in its richness of relationships, in its interconnectedness with everything else that exists.

The confidence that speaks from the text corresponds to a decidedly cheerful music that radiates vitality and joie de vivre. For the singer of the band, Marta Miranda, this is closely linked to her goal of renewing the Portuguese Fado tradition. She explicitly opposes the practice of her compatriots to keep „the sad fado like in a small glass box“. With her music she wants to „do the opposite and unite sadness and joy“.

About QqueStrada

The band was founded in 2001 by Marta Miranda and the French bassist Jean Marc Pablo. At the latest since their performance at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2012, they are known beyond the borders of Portugal.

Both Miranda, who has also performed as an actress, and Jean Marc Pablo, who formerly worked as an event manager, have a connection to theater. This is also evident in the band’s performances, which are always very expressive and often tell little stories in the video clips. These are mostly taken from people’s everyday lives and thus underline the band’s claim to give artistic expression to simple life.

This intention is realised by the band both on the level of the lyrics and through the music, which picks up instruments and sound elements of folk art. The performances equally correspond to the concept of a „street orchestra“. They often take place on smaller stages or in bars, where contact with the audience can be established more easily than in the large music halls.

Citation taken from: Bargon, Sebastian: Der Schrei der Unterdrückten. (The Cry of the Oppressed). Music on the Crisis from Spain, Portugal and Greece, p. 6. SWR2 „Tandem“, January 27, 2012 (German, PDF).

Images: Locuic: Ribeira Sacra („Sacred Riparian Land“) on the Minho River in Galicia (Pixabay); Rs-foto: OqueStrada during a performance in Nuremberg/Germany, 2010 (Wikimedia commons)