Um Comunista [English translation]

A mulato Baiano

Very tall and mulato

Son of an Italian

And of a black Hauçá

He went learning how to read

Watching the world around him

And paying attention

To what wasn't in plain view

Thus is born a communist

A mulato Baiano

Who died in São Paulo

Shot by men of the military power

Due to features it acquired in American soil

The so-called cold war

Rome, France and Bahia

The communists kept dreams

The communists! The communists!

The mulato Baiano, mini and manual

Of the urban guerrilla who was arrested by Vargas

Later by Magalhães

Finally, by the milicos

He was always chased in the minutiae of the tracks

How are the communists?

Not that his enemies

Were fighting

Against the terror nations

That communism schemes

But for vain interesets

Of power and wealth

Almost always for less

Almost never for more

The communists kept dreams

The communists! The communists!

The Baiano died

While I was exiled

And I sent a message

"It me who has died"

And that he was alive

But no one understood

Life without utopia

In my understanding doesn't exist

Thus speaks as communist

However, the human race

Remains tragic, always

Undecodable

Boredom, horror, wonderment

Oh, mulato Baiano

Samba reveres you

Even though it doesn't believe

In violence and guerrilla

Boredom, horror and wonderment

Grimy sidewalks

Multitudes decaying

There's an abyss between men

And men, the horror

Who and how will make

The earth be kindled?

And untie it's knots

Discussing itself clearly

Iemanjá, Maria, Iara

Iansã, Catijaçara

The mulato Baiano didn't obey

The orders of interest that came from Moscow

It was romantic struggle

It was light, it was darkness

Made of wonderment, of boredom and of horror

The communists kept dreams

The communists! The communists!

• Artist:Caetano Veloso