Ó meu amigo João [English translation]

My friend João

In that land you lost

If for nothing you died there

My friend, my brother

Of birth uncertain

They banned your childhood

They transformed you in the distance

With arms to wound

You were a floating leaf

Dragged by the current

And your blood was seed

Of dollar signs from another place

You would like to hear singing

The fashions of your land

And the truth that it contains

In its popular way

Your body of everything to give

Runs in the veins of the world

Vast, fertile, fecund

With strength of land and sea

I put here to remember

Of the hardship of your death

For above the blood the shouting

That was not misfortune nor luck

And the strength of the North Wind

Took your scream in hand

My friend, my brother

Who forced your luck