Censorship and the struggle for interpretation

notes for a study of Gonzaguinha's songbook

Abstract

The cenary of Brazilian popular music in the 1960s and 1970s brought a series of composers who achieved a level of lyrical articulation that the field of Literary Studies started to increasingly apply its theoretical tools to investigate the Song as an object of study. In the context of the military dictatorship thar operated during that period, irony proved to be a highly important tool for these composers, who made extensive use of it as a way to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the censorship department. Gonzaguinha, in this context, emerged as a musician particularly invested in this stylistic resource, even integrating it into his musical persona. Thus, using the framework presented by Canadian linguist Linda Hutcheon on the subjects of irony and parody, this study aims to understand how the starting and ending points of ironic discourse were employed by the composer within a broader panorama of Brazilian popular music. To this end, emphasis is placed on the concept of a “linguistic community” and the implications of this form of organization when considered in relation to the medium of media reproduction and its social circulation.