Caetano Veloso and the civil-business-military dictatorship: mediations between “it is forbidden to forbid” and “it is allowed to allow”

Abstract

The issue of political engagement during the civil-business-military dictatorship (1964-1985) generated misunderstandings. We were in the period of the Cold War, a phase in world history of intense political-ideological patrolling, which demanded from each individual an explicit and integral adhesion to one of the two world orders in open conflict. During this period, a public figure, one of the most fought by militants of all political perspectives, considered by some to be the main representative of national alienation, was the singer and composer of commercial urban popular music Caetano Veloso. Known in the anecdote of the Brazilian cultural criticism as the one who insisted on saying ‘or not’ at the end of a line of reasoning woven by him, Caetano Veloso was actually opening himself up to the contradictory instead of, as some of his critics wanted, affirming that everything has the same weight in the ‘geleia geral brasileira’. In his artistic production of the period, Caetano Veloso proposed the issue of Brazil back into discussion again. Based on the semiotic analysis of his lyrics from that time, I will try to show that Caetano Veloso's artistic-behavioral performance challenged the military regime by placing himself in its slots, its recesses and its crevices to assert autonomy, independence and freedom of thought and action.