SongWriter

Season 7, Episode 7

Pedro Mann & Maria Rezende

Pedro Mann & Maria Rezende, photo by Elena Moccagatta

Brazilian poet and film editor Maria Rezende has been friends with songwriter Pedro Mann  since she was a teenager. Pedro was in love with her younger sister then, and one day their father gave Pedro a poem. He challenged the young musician to transform the poem into a song. Pedro stayed up all night working on it.

“Oh my God,” Pedro recalled thinking, “I have to make something amazing, because I want to conquer this guy’s heart!”

It was only after he played the song for Maria’s father that he found out that the poem was actually Maria’s. Over the years since then Pedro has used many of Maria’s poems as inspiration, in a long and fruitful artistic collaboration.

Today’s episode of SongWriter features a poem Maria wrote about forgiveness. It was inspired by a moment  when she badly hurt the feelings of a man she was in love with – she apologized, but he did not forgive her.

“I discovered that even if you acknowledge a mistake and ask for forgiveness, maybe that’s not enough,” Maria said. “The poem was my desperate measure to try to convince him to forgive me.” (The poem in English and Portuguese is copied below.)

Kurt Shaw and Rita da Silva

Kurt Shaw and Rita Oenning da Silva

Interestingly, when scientists Dr. Rita de Cacia Oenning da Silva and Kurt Shaw first read the poem, they thought it was about national Brazilian issues of reconciliation and justice.

“The history of Brazil is marked by a series of abuses in relation to the process of colonization,” Rita said. “And in that case, asking for forgiveness, it’s not enough.”

Kurt and Rita argue that human flourishing is connected not just with issues of reconciliation and forgiveness, but also philosophy, play, and dance. In fact, Kurt says that the Brazilian national dance of Samba contains a metaphor for forgiveness, as well as the possibility of rupture. He points out that the Brazilian word for “balance” is not a fixed state, but implies movement – the back and forth between steadiness and unsteadiness.

“That’s that swing. The Samba is: ‘I almost fall, and then I stand,’” Kurt said. “That moment of syncopation is also the moment of inviting the other person to come and dance with you.”

 

Pedro Mann and Maria Rezende

Pedro Mann & Maria Rezende, photo by Elena Moccagatta

Pedro had a long conversation with Dr. Oenning da Silva and Dr. Shaw before he began writing his song in response to Maria’s poem. A few days later while he was brushing his teeth, Pedro realized that he wanted to write a song about his father. Pedro’s father died many years ago, after a difficult life. He was bi-polar, and sometimes violent, having suffered violence many times himself.

“The first sentence that came to my mind was, ‘Forgive me, forgive me. The pain that I caused you was the same pain that I carried inside,’” Pedro said.

The song, Pedro explained, became a vehicle for connection and repair with his father. Art is often a representation of the emotional past, but it can also be a mechanism for reconceptualizing and reframing those emotions.

Maria, who translated Pedro’s words into English for the podcast, put it this way:

“The song is a conversation that you are having with him, even if he is not here.”

*Special thanks to Kurt Shaw, who transcribed and translated the podcast into Portuguese and English, and Dolores Gutiérrrez for the Spanish translation.

Perdão

Porque existe sim erro e existe culpa

E porque remorsos não apagam o já feito

o mal dito

Perdão existe também

e se pede

e tem esquecimento

mas não pra isso

Porque o amor constrói castelos

e gente não vive em contos de fadas

Porque o castelo pode até ser de cartas

mas que o sopro não seja meu

Porque felicidade é a droga mais cara do mercado

e pode levar uma vida pra chegar

eu te peço desculpas

todas

muitas

Porque a voz pode calar

e a sombra do erro seguir como um eco

te peço desculpas por escrito

E porque foi palavra o veneno

busco nela a minha cura

e te peço desculpas como uma súplica

como um grito

 

Forgiveness

Because there are faults 

and there is guilt

Because regrets do not erase the facts

the done deed

the misspoken words

There is forgiveness too

and we plead

and there is also oblivion

but not for this

Because love builds castles

but we don’t live in fairy tales

Because the castle may be made of cards

but let the blow not come from me

Because happiness is the rarest drug around

and may take a lifetime to arrive

I apologize

with all my heart

with pleading hands

Because the voice may fail

and the fault keep echoing 

I apologize in blue ink

And because spoken words were the poison

I make them my antidote

and apologize loud and clear

as a desperate prayer

as an urgent roar

Templeton World Charity Foundation

Season seven of SongWriter is made possible by a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation.

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This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc (funder DOI 501100011730, under the grant https://doi.org/10.54224/31681). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.