The Formalization of defeat: about “Eles” and “A Voz do Morto”, by Caetano Veloso

Abstract

By examining two songs by Caetano Veloso in the end of the 1960s, “Eles” (1968) and “A voz do morto” (1968), I intend to understand how these songs express the mourning of relevant precepts of the left wing and the cultural policy linked to the national popular. Finally, in describing the criticism of Roberto Schwarz toward the tropicalismo and Caetano Veloso, I aim for demonstrating how the issues highlighted by him - through the analysis of the memoir of Veloso - were already expressed in the songs of Caetano in the late 1960s.