"Três apitos": lyricism and violence in Noel Rosa

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how there is a clear class struggle hidden in one of the most notorious and extraordinary Noel Rosa's love songs that opposes a comfortable and young representative of the carioca burgeoisie and a cloth factory workwoman. In the song, the ambiguity of the compliments is crescent, bringing out violence and arbitrariness, evoking another famed narrator, Bento Santiago, who masks reification and slavery in expressions of love feeling. In the end, by confering intonation, it's even possible to doubt if the song really is adressed to the workwoman as it seems, leading us to believe that is a inner message between equals about a unsuccessful love conquest.