Fado Tordo [English translation]

Whether I want to or no

My voice is raised in song

Whatever I may or may not do

My voice rules whatever I say

Whether I suffer or not

My voice tells me where I’m bound

Whether I ask it or not

I have no say in the voice that I am.

Even when I say things I don’t want

I’m the slave of my voice and this fate

Even when I run away in despair

It can crop up anywhere

Even it I try a disguise

It finds me out right away

Even if I’m crying or not crying

The voice that II am bursts out laughing.

Whenever I might want

Just a moment’s rest

The more I promise that

I shall return to my voice and its song

The more I might and its song

The more I might have beseeched

This voice not to leave me

It asked me in a frenzy

Have I given you reason to complain?

The more I putout the flame

The more powerfully it returns

The more I draw away from it

The closer and ever stronger does it get

The more I want to understand

The voice I have is so tenacious

That the more I take away its poetry

It tries to forget and sings in prose.