Cajuína
Caetano Veloso
Lyrical Reflections in 'Cajuína': The Fragility of Life, Human Connections, and Grief
The song 'Cajuína', composed and performed by Caetano Veloso, is deeply connected to an event in the singer's life. The song was written after a meeting with the father of Torquato Neto, a Brazilian poet and lyricist who committed suicide in 1972. Although Caetano only saw the father of the deceased several years after his son's death, he reported feeling profoundly moved, then burst into tears and wrote the lyrics of this song after the encounter.
According to the artist's explanation, that day, the two went to Torquato Neto's father's house and stayed alone in silence, with only portraits of the deceased around them. While Caetano remained depressed, the man went to the kitchen, took two glasses, and filled them with cajuína, a cashew juice that is very popular in northeastern Brazil. At another moment, he went to the garden, picked a rose, and gave it to the artist, who felt even more moved.
The lines 'Cause when you gave me the little rose / I saw that you are a beautiful man' and 'And we were looking at each other, intact retina / The crystalline cajuína in Teresina' mention the attempts at consolation and contrast with thoughts about the fragility of life and the sadness of losing a dear friend. The song, therefore, reveals the difficulty of dealing with the feeling of mourning combined with the beauty that can be seen in the attempt to provide emotional support at a given moment.
