Tiro ao Álvaro
Encyclopedia
"Tiro ao Álvaro" is a samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...

 song composed in 1960 by Italian-Brazilian composer and singer Adoniran Barbosa
Adoniran Barbosa
Adoniran Barbosa, artistic name of João Rubinato , was a famous Brazilian traditional samba singer and composer.-Early years:...

 (real name João Rubinato). In his style of the "paulista" samba, it has humorous lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 written in a popular Portuguese language
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

.

Lyrics










Original

De tanto levar frechada do teu olhar

Meu peito até parece sabe o quê?

Tauba de tiro ao álvaro

Não tem mais onde furar

Tauba de tiro ao álvaro

Não tem mais onde furar


Teu olhar mata mais

Do que bala de carabina

Que veneno estriquinina

que peixera de baiano

Teu olhar mata mais

Do que atropelamento de automove

Mata mais que bala de revorve
    
Standard Brazilian Portuguese

De tanto levar flechada do teu olhar

Meu peito até parece sabe o quê?

Tábua de tiro ao alvo

Não tem mais onde furar

Tábua de tiro ao alvo

Não tem mais onde furar


Teu olhar mata mais

Do que bala de carabina

Que veneno estricnina

que peixeira de baiano

Teu olhar mata mais

Do que atropelamento de automóvel

Mata mais que bala de revólver
    
Free translation

After so many arrow shots from you eyes

My breast looks like you know what?

A target practice board

Which can take no more holes

A target practice board

Which can take no more holes


Your looks kill more

Than a carbine's bullet

More than strychnine poison

More than a Baiano's knife

Your looks kill more

Than an automobile running over me

Kills more than the bullet of a gun


Note: Even though the Portuguese lyrics contain many colloquial features (and at least one hypercorrection, "álvaro" instead of "alvo") that would be considered mistakes according to the standard language norm, they depict the actual language spoken by Paulistanos at the time. Unfortunately these features are lost in the English translation.
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