According to ChatGPT, the song nobody, nobody was written by the Portuguese composer Carlos Paião, who – for those who don’t know – is the subject of one of the greatest Portuguese pop myths: according to vote popularCarlos would have been buried alive and his coffin would have, on the inside, marks from the nails of a desperate Paião scratching the lid.
It is not entirely certain how the myth was born, especially since the cause of Paião’s death is well known (a tragic traffic accident at an excessively young age), nor why someone would bury Paião still alive, although in this case It can be assumed that whoever buried him thought he was dead (and most likely they did). It is also difficult to understand how anyone could access the inside of the coffin to check the nail marks.
From João Simão to Marco Paulo, the romantic who only wanted to be a singer (1945-2024)
What we know is that Carlos Paião did not write nobody, nobodyformerly the British duo consisting of Peter Yellowstone (composer) and Mike Tinsley (lyricist). Originally the song was called midnight loverpopularized by Joe Dolan, a popular Irish troubadour who also went down in history as the “roaring hyena”.
nobody, nobody was originally released in 1978, side B of the single forbidden song, side A that did not go down in history in the same way, especially because it did not manage to reach the same value as its younger sister: nobody, nobody It is the paradigm of the way Marco Paulo (died at 79) crossed generations. How he survived the crossing of the desert that remains for those who are voted in the world of national-foleirismo, as happened with the singer with his own name João Simão. Generations passed, Marco Paulo remained, and not only remained but also enrolled. more unintentionally than anything else, his recordings in the national composition. In other words: Marco Paulo’s verses and choruses are part of our memory in such a way that we sing them as if they had been with us forever.
[“Ninguém, Ninguém”, de Marco Paulo:]
who wrote nobody, nobody —or more accurately, António José, the man who adapted the original, as he adapted many other songs recorded by Marco Paulo—certainly did not expect that in 1978 the song would be released as a B-side (the following year it would be part of the album light concert). And yes, it’s true, at the time of its release, nobody, nobody It was not the main bet of the artist and the publisher, but rather a song “to fill.” For many decades it could be argued that I have two loves It was Marco Paulo’s most emblematic song; today it may be nobody, nobodybut each one will have their favorite (or most hated) Marco Paulo.
You can also bet that whoever composed the song did not imagine that it would one day be arranged like this: in the opening seven seconds, before Marco Paulo’s vocal entry, the ascension of the strings seems to be equivalent to someone’s mental process. who, on the way to work, remembers that he forgot his son at home and returns at full speed, on the verge of an anxiety attack.
But what exactly is it nobody, nobody And what explains its popularity? I have a theory about the effectiveness of pop that boils down to: it works because it concludes a story in 3 minutes and has a chorus that sticks in your ear. But what we usually memorize about the song is not the whole story, but a couple of phrases (for me, for years, what Lou Reed sang in I can’t stand it was “It’s hard to be a man / live in a garbage can,” and it was a song with a social slant. What he really sings is “It’s hard to be a man/Living in a trash can.” We can still argue that it has this tendency, but it is not exactly the same.
In nobody, nobody There are a couple of strong lines that I think are the ones that everyone knows and that are equivalent to the chorus:
“No one, no one / Can change the world
Nobody, nobody / Is stronger than love.
Nobody, nobody, nobody”
It’s not entirely clear what’s going on here: in the first sentence there seems to be an appeal to conservatism, or a resignation to the strong forces that govern the universe, something strange in 1978, when we had just emerged from a revolution; In the second phrase, the song leads to a romantic hagiography that will be at the center of its success: “No one is stronger than love.”
The song seems to say that we don’t control anything in this life or, at least, what happens out there in the world; Our only hope is love and even love is stronger than us, that’s why we can only accept it. The ontological consequences of the phrase are multiple: can a person love two, three or four people? And if so, does the person you are in a relationship with have to accept that the other person loves multiple people? And if I love Mary and I can’t control my love (because love is stronger than anything, remember) and Mary doesn’t love me, wouldn’t it be better for me to control my love (something I apparently can?) What can’t I? what if I interpret the lyrics literally)?
[Marco Paulo na RTP na década de 80, com “Ninguém, Ninguém”:]
Be that as it may, this epic and hyper-romantic dimension of life as an absolute defined exclusively by the loving success that redeems and justifies everything has long been tremendously attractive. The arrangement chosen for the song is appropriate: it begins frenetically, before, for seven seconds, Marco Paulo distributes syllables at the speed with which a cowboy fired bullets in the old westerns:
“Those who have seen us already told me that they found me with a new love without knowing anything.
They keep talking because it’s easy to invent, that’s where everyone invents it.
They did it well without knowing that now there is a passion inside my heart.
This time you can say anything, but now this is really love.”
All of this is sung in less than 30 seconds and, at 25 and 29 seconds, there are choruses (“A-aa, A-aa”) so unexpected and kitsch that it is impossible not to smile; Then comes the bridge, with a soft touch of chanson, elegant strings and existentialist finishes:
“Whose was I, who am I, where am I going?
Only I know, no one else knows.
Nobody
Yes or no, who can give me the reason for everything that happens?
Nobody”
How do we get here? The song begins by telling us that “Whoever has seen us has already said that he found me with a new love without knowing anything”, then it seems to denounce a society of envious snitches (“They keep talking because it is easy to invent, everyone invents it”), but it comforts us because “this is really love now.”
But will it be? “Whose was I, who am I, where am I going? / Only I know, but no one knows” seems to imply that it is not certain that the narrator is properly committed to a person; There is another possible interpretation: it doesn’t matter what someone did in the past, the only thing that matters is this love here and now. Since love is not exactly rational (after all, no one is stronger than love), it seems to appear when it wants without us being able to do anything – hence the narrator asks himself “Who gives me the reason for everything?” what happens? ” and give the answer “Nobody.”
Perhaps a song without these semiotic obstacles, a simpler song in which a narrator says “I love you and that’s it,” would be less attractive. The vision of love presented here has, after all, obstacles: the comments of others, a possible apparently promiscuous past – and overcoming these obstacles makes it reach the apotheosis that we begin to guess when Marco Paulo sings even more epic:
“If after all I love you, better or worse, no one will separate us.
Nobody
Leave him alone, no one will change this love that belongs to me.
Nobody”
And it is at that moment, at minute 90, when the chorus enters for the first time, in all its ecstatic fullness, the chorus that elevates nobody, nobody to the rarefied air of Portuguese pop mythology, the chorus that makes men and women dream of a love that redeems everything they have gone through in life:
“No one, no one
I could change the world
nobody nobody
It’s stronger than love
Nobody, nobody, nobody”
In light of all that was left behind, the idea of the song becomes clearer: despite all the obstacles to the realization of this love, the loving endeavor continues simply because it is written in the stars that it be so, because Love wants, it chooses us and no one can oppose its gravitational force.
An unpublished interview with Marco Paulo: “You will always remember that a few years ago there was a singer who moved people”
Nobody, nobody can explain exactly why an over-arranged version, with disco sound mannerisms and caricatured choruses, of any song written by an unknown English composer, translated – or rewritten – by another unknown one, recorded as the B-side of a single, is It became, decades later, a symbol of the idea of a romantic song.
But perhaps it’s simple: any song in which someone swears by the strength of their love during an epic chorus, doubled by dizzying strings, has the possibility of finding, somewhere in the world, souls in need of the balm of hope it contains. . nobody, nobody.
Source: Observadora
