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“ The idea of Portugal in 80’s rock music: a testemony in the flesh”
A ideia de Portugal na música rock dos anos 80: um testemunho em carne viva”
Florentino Franco e Rosa Fina
CLEPUL/ Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
The musical nationalism has its roots in the nineteenth century, set in a stream of late
Romanticism. The great composers who used nationalist expression were inspired mainly by the folk
songs and literature of oral tradition from which collected most of the themes and quotes. With regard to
the nature of the compositions, nationalism was expressed through the instrumental symphony, and in
another instance, had his lyrical and dramatic expression in operas. This stream of musical nationalism
had a notable representation in the late nineteenth century in countries like France or Russia, with
referenced names as Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Debussy.
In the twentieth century musical nationalism manifests itself almost everywhere in Europe,
largely due to instability caused by two World Wars, the threat of its independence by the superpowers
and also by a persistent colonial spirit. Becomes almost as important as the nationalist literature, getting
ahead of the written art on the universality of its means of expression: the music goes beyond any
language barrier. Béla Bartók, for example, is a Hungarian composer, subscriber of an exacerbated
nationalism, whose works came to be banned by the Nazi regime.
As for the musical genre that we discuss, the rock in the '80s, it was then a more consolidated
and vast movement than in its earlier manifestations. Officially, the first rock n 'roll recording was made in
1955 by Bill Haley and the Comets, with the song "Rock around the clock. " However, the origins of rock
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n’ roll go back to earlier times. Skirting the philological root of the term, it is almost inseparable from the
african-american culture from the beginning of the twentieth century, the term that connotes both the
dancing and fun in
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The term rock n 'roll first appeared in the seventeenth century to describe the movement of a boat at sea.
“Rocking” to describe the movement of back and forward and “rolling” to describe the movement to the sides.
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general, as with sex . In the forties a music journalist used the term "rock and roll" to describe a genre of
music more danceable and aimed at a younger audience.
This genre originated in the United States has spread all over the world, mainly in the 50s and
60s, with phenomena which also followed this scale, like Elvis Presley or the Beatles, for example.
However, the success of this style in other countries was reflected in the accurate reproduction of the
phenomenon in the U.S., but an interpretation of the native kind, that is, remained the aesthetic with the
expression appropriate to the euphoric feeling resulting trends and context of each country.
This genre originated in the United States has spread all over the world, mainly in the 50s and
60s, with phenomena which also followed this scale, like Elvis Presley or the Beatles, for example.
However, the success of this style in other countries wasn’t reflected in the accurate reproduction of the
phenomenon in the U.S., but as an interpretation of the native kind, that is, maintaining the aesthetics,
figures the appropriate expression to the euphoric feeling resulting of all the trends and context of each
country.
In the 80s Portugal is still living confused times. After 38 years of dictatorship, a revolution in
1974 brought to light the possibility of a level up with other European countries -the issue thickens with
the entrance in the EEC in 1986 -and, perhaps, with the United States. But this comparison which, by the
urgency in changing the situation in Portugal, was wanted with immediate results, it is rather lengthy and
convoluted that even today, now entering the second decade of this century, did not materialize. In the
80s, however, there was not this awareness, because there was no possible comparison with a similar
situation. These decade was, therefore, years of excess and an almost adolescent discovery of freedom. All
this was reflected sharply in Portuguese culture in general and particularly in music.
Until today there is no record of a decade so fruitful in the appearance of new bands and new
music projects of great quality and, it should be noted, of great originality. Bands like Xutos e Pontapés,
Heróis do Mar, GNR, UHF, Mler Ife Dada, Jorge Palma, Rui Veloso, Pop Del'Arte, Rockivários, Ocaso
Épico and Street Kids inflated the veins of the 80s cultural society with an almost intoxicating new blood.
The concert halls that already existed were filled, others were improvised (such as gymnasiums and small
town halls) and new
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Meaning that relates to expressions like “rolling in the hay”, among others.
space solely devoted to the music opened up. This was the case of the well known Rock Rendez-Vous,
today, as at the time, synonymous with the real '80s rock.
This study focuses precisely on this corpus: the rock bands of the 80s and the image of
Portugal as well as the idea of nationality, expressed in their songs. The perspectives are endless, as well
as the richness and diversity of all the projects. From the quasi-nationalist themes of Heróis do Mar e
Sétima Legião, to the revolutionary and bold punk of Xutos e Pontapés, which listed out some of the most
acute social critics of the time. Not forgetting the dream world of Jorge Palma or António Variações, both
living a very particular nationality, always wandering. Noteworthy are the thin metaphor of GNR, which
soon put some of the major national issues in a radio friendly playful rhyme.
If the Fado genre is the one that characterizes and defines us as a people, with the dominance
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of emotions embodied in words like longing, grief, sorrow, love or fate , the '80s rock brings cheer to this
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melancholic soul that so many foreigners classified as unwavering and having gentle ways . These are not
songs of intervention, but do not cease to be, for the political and social sense in lyrics are not to be
ignored.
Taking the possibility to set some lines of thinking that are common in some bands and
uncommon to others, we hypothesized to exist some musical groups that narrate and reflect on the social
crisis and on the everyday problems and those who, above all, the loss of a place summit that Portugal has
occupied in history. As regards Duarte Drumond Braga, the active bands in this decade gathered "from the
references to social and political arena to the recovery of historical-cultural mythical-symbolic signs, the
act of thinking Portugal trough rock -as well as any other cultural mean of this period -necessarily starts
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with the awareness of the abrupt end of a imperial cycle of half a millennium."
This analysis, we hope, will shed light on a field often overlooked in the questioning of what
is national: music, stressing its importance not only for its capacity to reach the masses, but mainly as an
undeniable testimony that retains relevantly experiences, ideals, dreams, expectations and disappointments
of an entire generation.
3 4 Zuzanna Bubat Silva, Fado – uma aproximação semântica. Varsóvia: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT, 2008. Mircea
Eliade, “Appendix B: First Impressions of Portugal” in The Portugal Journal (Preface and Notes by Mac Linscott
5 Ricketts). Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010, p. 239. Steve Vai, “Brandos costumes” in Alive in a
6 ultra world, 2003. Duarte Drumond Braga, “Notas sobre Portugal como questão no rock dos anos oitenta: Sétima
Legião e a mitopoética da Cultura Portuguesa” paper for the Colloquium Poéticas do Rock, FLUL, 2009.