This post was originally published in 2019 in my previous blog.

The poet had no daughters. Or sons. Twice they expected, him and his wife Deolinda, the weeks and months accumulating in an anxious countdown, and twice they came back from the hospital with nothing but a void in their arms. The nest empty, one more time.

That’s why when a little girl appeared in his life, the poet started calling her “mine.” They played together, ate together and, why not, began singing along. He would sit on the couch, guitar on his lap, little girl by his side, and start humming. She followed and soon enough she was like a little bird, chirping his poems into beautiful songs.

The poet would say he was making samba, but people would argue that his songs were just too sad to be called samba. So he started calling it his laments. And while his guitar gently wept and little girl sang, he began to build a whole new genre of music.

But the saddest lament of his songbook was about a father and his daughter. A daughter that became a teenager, fell in love and decided to leave home at 16. And the poet sang “It’s still too soon, my love, you barely started to know life.”

Little girl didn’t care.

“Pay attention my darling, although I know you are decided, on every corner of these streets you will lose a piece of your life, and in a short time you won’t be yourself anymore,” begged the poet. “Listen to me; this world is like a mill, it will grind your petty dreams, it will reduce your illusions until there’s nothing but dust.”

Little girl didn’t listen.

The poet was devastated. Although, he learned, his songs were much better when he was heartbroken.

Little girl never actually left. She kept singing by his side and even helped him to put his laments out there, so many many more could enjoy it.

This is a free adaptation of the true story of the Brazilian composer Cartola and his adoptive daughter, Creusa. Cartola was known as one of the most important voices of Choro, a musical genre similar to samba whose name means “lament.”