interviewed by Luiz Roberto Oliveira photos: Eduardo Pires Ferreira CHAPTER IV

I love you

Chico sings and plays a portion of "Eu te Amo". Download either of these two files, both of them 19 seconds long at 16 bits, 22 kHz: au / 422 Kb wav / 826 Kb To listen, you can use the Live Audio plug-in for Netscape 3.0, or similar software for Explorer 3.0.

Chico Buarque: Fact is, I didn't used to play Tom's compositions. I never played them, because he used to show me the music at the piano, we'd make a tape of it and then I'd take it home to write the lyrics. Luiz Roberto Oliveira: And Tom liked your compositions so much, I mean he just really liked them alot. He used to say, "That's it, Luiz, you know, Chico's got this tune here, just listen to it!" And then he'd play it; he knew all your compositions. Whenever I was with Tom and there was a piano nearby he would play one of your tunes. "Modinha", for example, he adored. CB: Tom was always very generous and caring with me. He even liked some of my earliest compositions, like "Ela Desatinou", (She's Gone Crazy), "A sua lembrança me dói tanto" (Remembering You Hurts So Bad)...

Bororó: "He plays it but he won't record it" CB: He was that way with a lot of tunes by other composers too; he paid attention to what they were doing. It was just at the end there that he started getting kind of fed up, he'd had it with music. He used to say "I hate music", but on the other hand, he was constantly listening to new people, and old ones too: Bororó, Custódio Mesquita, people like that. He liked Ary Barroso quite a bit. LR: He could play several of Bororó's tunes without missing a note. One day I ran into Bororó in an office that handles artists' copyrights, and at first I didn't recognize him. Then I said: "Ah, Bororó, what a coincidence, what a pleasure to see you, it's me, Chico Buarque" and so on. "You know, just yesterday [this was the truth], last night I was at Tom's house and he was playing some of your compositions." And Bororó answered: "Yeah, he plays'em but he won't record'em" (laughter). CB: Bororó is famous for being ill humored... Later on Tom did wind up recording a tune with him. LR: It must've been "Curare", which Tom liked so much.

My Greatest Maestro LR: It's so beautiful that you call Tom "My Greatest Maestro" in that tune of yours. CB: When I wrote that, it was in homage to Tom first of all -- but also in homage to Brazilian music, through Tom -- I asked them to make a CD copy of just that one composition and I sent it to him. I didn't want to annoy him, I knew he wasn't much in the mood to listen to new music, and so I left a message like: "Tom, just listen to this music once, it's just one tune!" (laughter). And he listened to it and he was so happy, so touched. And later he even recorded it with me for a TV special. It was one of the last times I was with him. He was so happy. Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro LR: Chico, I'd like to call this interview I've done with you, "My Greatest Maestro". CB: I'd love it if you used that title. In the Botanical Garden here in Rio there's this huge tree, enormous, called a Sumaúma or something like that, which he liked a lot -- he used to hug it. They put a plaque there: "Maestro Soberano - Tom Jobim". And afterwards he named his last album "Antonio Brasileiro", which is the same title I gave to my composition. LR: The lyrics are deeply moving. CB: He often liked to play this game, it was like a mania almost: "My father was from Rio Grande do Sul, my grandfather was from Leme in São Paulo, my great-grandfather was from Ceará, and that makes me a cousin to Vinícius". And I began the lyric with that in my head: "My father was from São Paulo, my grandfather was from Pernambuco,..." and it ends with him.

"Tão" CB: I used to call Tom "Tão", and he used to say: "People out in the sticks call me Tão, out there in Poço Fundo." LR: (Leo) Peracchi also called him Tão. "Because Tão is a good little boy, Tão writes pretty songs."

Imagine CB: Tom used to say it was hard to write the lyrics for "Imagina" (Imagine), because the music had been composed as an instrumental. It was almost impossible to add lyrics to all those little notes -- in fact, it wasn't adequate for being made into a song. But we were doing the soundtrack for a movie and I decided to write lyrics for it. And it was really hard, but I managed. He was in New York when he got them, and he sent a telegram saying in English, "It's very exquisite!" But in the end he liked very much the way it turned out. LR: The lyrics are gorgeous, and so is the music. After that came "Anos Dourados" (Golden Years) - and "Piano na Mangueira" was the last one you did for Tom. The nasty rumor is that you took too long do the words for "Anos Dourados". CB: It's true, I took a long time, but I'm not really a speedy guy. "Anos Dourados" was supposed to be the theme song for a TV mini-series that had the same name, and it went on the air with no lyrics because they just weren't ready. After the series went off the air, that's when the lyrics appeared... (laughter) LR: It was worth the wait, I presume. CB: (joking) It was just that the series came out too soon!...

Looking over my shoulder LR: What does Tom mean to you? What does he represent? In terms of music, as a person, as a friend? CB: To me as a creative artist it means there's a hole, a huge empty space, there's something missing - that's Tom's absence. Now that I'm getting back to writing music after about two years, I'm trying to bring back some kind of a feeling of Tom being by my side... Sometimes I feel like he's still around, and that he won't abandon me. Once, in an emotional moment, I said: "Everything I do, I do for Tom", and it just came out of me without thinking, but it's true. There's a poem by João Cabral de Melo Neto that talks about a person who's leaning over your shoulder, looking at what you're writing - Tom is that in a big sense. So many things I wrote, tunes I composed, I had the feeling, or I'd like to have had the feeling, that Tom was leaning over my shoulder looking at it, either approving of it or not. Even there towards the end of his life, Tom didn't have much patience left for listening to new material, and I didn't have much hope left, I didn't have much desire or intention to show new music to him; but the mere fact that he existed, that he was still there, it served as a reference point. I would think: if Tom had the patience to listen to this music, he'd like it. Now in his absence you have a better idea of what he represented.

The end

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