Saudade de Minha Terra

What good is it to me, living in the city,
If happiness doesn't come with me.
Goodbye little São Paulo of my heart,
Back to my backlands I want to return.
Seeing at dawn, when the birds,
Making the morning, start to sing,
With satisfaction, I saddle the mule,
Cutting through the road, I start to gallop;
And I listen to the cattle bellowing,
The thrush singing in the jequitibá.

By Our Lady, my beloved backlands,
I live regretting having left you;
This new life, here in the city,
I have cried so much from missing you,
Here someone says they care for me,
But it doesn't suit me, I have thought,
I feel sorry, but this brunette,
Doesn't know the system in which I was raised.
I'm here singing, listening from afar,
Someone is crying with the radio on.

What immense longing, for the countryside and the woods,
For the gentle stream that cuts through the fields,
On Sundays I used to go, paddling in a canoe,
In the beautiful lagoon of crystal-clear waters;
What sweet memory, of those celebrations,
Where there were dances and beautiful girls,
I live nowadays without joy,
The world is harsh but also teaches.
I am upset but not defeated,
I am well guided by divine hands.

To my dear mother, I have already telegraphed,
That I am tired of suffering so much;
This dawn I will be leaving,
For the beloved land that saw me born;
I already hear, dreaming, the rooster crowing,
The tinamou chirping as it gets dark,
The silver moon, lighting up the roads,
The grass wet since nightfall.
I need to go, to see everything there,
It was there that I was born, there I want to die.