ABSTRACT
Caetano Veloso's work has always been concerned with the problems and pleasures of songwriting. In 1975 he released two albums that represent his most intense exploration of this concern. The songs on these albums enact struggles in the relationship between language and meaning, exposing the processes by which artistic meaning is produced. The songs on both of these albums also consider the ways in which cultural memory is formed, stored and transmitted in the musical and verbal language of popular song. Veloso revives the debate on cultural memory by advocating a perspective that surpasses a conventional historical view of time, in favour of a temporality that embraces a wider concept of cultural heritage. The translation process evident in the tradition of Brazilian popular song and highlighted in these albums recognises that a polyvalent expression is the only possible expression of Brazilian cultural memory.
