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Rating: 1972 is the year of Gilberto Gil's return to his homeland after three years of forced exile in England. It's also the time to start anew, to reassess everything and put himself back in the game by processing the new influences absorbed in London.
Let's imagine what it meant to live through those years, immersed in that musical and cultural ferment, for a great artist like Gil along with his excellent tropicalist companion Caetano Veloso, the two of them who had already paved the way for Brazilian musical contamination. They breathe deeply the air of London clubs, witness the protests in the streets, and probably open the doors to new perceptions thanks to new synthetic substances.
"Expresso 2222" is the name of a train, the one that, as a boy, brought him back to Salvador after many years spent away from his city.
"Expresso 2222" is the name of a song that tells of a lysergic journey through time, on shimmering tracks towards infinity, starting from a land of wind, fire, water, and salt, up to the sky where Christ is seen ascending in a veil of bright cloud.
"Expresso 2222" is the name of this excellent album where Gil manages to win the challenge of summarizing all his musical, cultural, and personal experiences. He completes what tropicalismo set out to achieve in music. Freed now from the heavy burden of political protest against the dictatorship, which finds its new spokesperson in Chico Buarque, Gil manages to nullify, with his new wealth of experiences, the distances between the United Kingdom and Bahia, he builds a temporal bridge between the new and the past, the latter referring to the bossanova heritage and northeastern musical tradition.
"Pipoca moderna" opens the album with the sound of Indian flutes; it wants to be an embrace to his beloved land, and then "Back to Bahia" a funk-rock that exorcises all that nostalgia suffered during the exile. "O canto da ema" and "Chiclete com banana", are two pieces made successful at the end of the fifties by the good Jackson do Pandeiro, I would dare say two "standards" of Brazilian music, magnificently rearranged, the first in a rock style and the second in bossa-nova. And then "Oriente" to immerse us in spiritualist reflections and the beautiful "Sai do sereno", and so on, continuing the journey on this express, through a listen that lets itself be absorbed with ease, rich in ideas, well produced and even better played, a work that, for the aforementioned influences, could be a good start to approach Brazilian music.
Thank you, Gil.
Tracklist and Lyrics
04 Chiclete com banana (03:25)
Só ponho bebop no meu samba
Quando o tio Sam pegar no tamborim
Quando ele pegar no pandeiro e no zabumba
Quando ele entender que o samba não é rumba
Aí eu vou misturar Miami com Copacabana
Chicletes eu misturo com banana
E o meu samba vai ficar assim
Quero ver a grande confusão
É o samba-rock, meu irmão
Mas em compensação
Quero ver o boogie-woogie de pandeiro e violão
Quero ver o tio Sam de frigideira
Numa batucada brasileira
Quero ver o tio Sam de frigideira
Numa batucada brasileira
Quero ver a grande confusão
É o samba-rock, meu irmão
07 Expresso 2222 (02:40)
Começou a circular o Expresso 2222
Que parte direto de Bonsucesso pra depois
Começou a circular o Expresso 2222
Da Central do Brasil
Que parte direto de Bonsucesso
Pra depois do ano 2000
Dizem que tem muita gente de agora
Se adiantando, partindo pra lá
Pra 2001 e 2 e tempo afora
Até onde essa estrada do tempo vai dar
Do tempo vai dar
Do tempo vai dar, menina, do tempo vai
Segundo quem já andou no Expresso
Lá pelo ano 2000 fica a tal
Estação final do percurso-vida
Na terra-mãe concebida
De vento, de fogo, de água e sal
De água e sal
De água e sal
Ô, menina, de água e sal
Dizem que parece o bonde do morro
Do Corcovado daqui
Só que não se pega e entra e senta e anda
O trilho é feito um brilho que não tem fim
Oi, que não tem fim
Que não tem fim
Ô, menina, que não tem fim
Nunca se chega no Cristo concreto
De matéria ou qualquer coisa real
Depois de 2001 e 2 e tempo afora
O Cristo é como quem foi visto subindo ao céu
Subindo ao céu
Num véu de nuvem brilhante subindo ao céu
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