"If solitude were given me"

Mario Jorge and Fado

"Se me dão a solidão ...
Com sete pedras na mão
Só porque falo verdade
A minha casa vazia
A minha boca mais fria
Serão a minha cidade"

If solitude were given me
With disdain
For speaking the truth
My empty house
My even colder mouth
Would my city be

Name: Mario Casimiro Garcia Jorge
Stage Name: Mario Jorge
Date of Birth: April 23, 1949
Place of Birth: Porto Brandão, Almada, Portugal
Professional Category: Fado Singer (Fado Troubador)
Start of Musical Career: Almada, end of the 60's, beginnings of the 70's with songs of intervention.
Arrival in Toronto: October 1974
Started Singing Fado: In 1982
Experience: In these twenty years of Fado, I have performed at almost all the clubs, associations and restaurants throughout the Province of Ontario as well as at some clubs in Montreal.

Projects: I will be launching my first CD in September 2003. It's a collection of some of the fados and poems that touch me most. This project is the realization of a dream that I had haboured for a very long time.

Awards: The "Artist of the Year" Merit Award - ACAPO (Alliance of Portuguese Clubs and Associations of Ontario)

The acceptance by the Portuguese People, as well as some foreigners, of my form of expression and the way I position myself within the Fado, and of my struggle, almost won, to introduce the more academic poets into the world of Fado. These constitute my more relevant awards.

"E em cada madrugada
Que me encontro só na estrada
Que vai de mim até mim
Farei erguer uma flor
A quem chamarei amor
Mesmo que seja o meu fim"

And at each break of day
That sees me alone on this road
Stretching from I to me
I will hoist up a flower
That I shall love name
Even if it be my demise

Mário Jorge writes ...

"For me, to sing Fado is to free words that are kept in the tiny boxes of one's dreams stashed away on the shelves of the soul.

To sing Fado is to possess Lusitanian soul and passion. It is to see and look beyond the infinite.

When I sing, I lose myself in my very own labyrinth. I open up my breast and let the heart speak for me.

Fado is my destiny
Destiny is my Fado 24/02/02"

"Depois podem vir lavar
As vossas mãos no olhar
Que trago triste e vazio
Ai minha Mãe, que cansaço
Fora o mundo o teu regaço
E eu morreria sem frio"

Then you may come and wash
Your hands in the gaze
I bear, sad and empty
O mother, how tired
If the world were your lap
I would die not feeling the cold

Vasco Lima Couto

(Translated from the Portuguese texts by Adiaspora.com)