The first European song book includes 6 Portuguese songs
“Amar Pelos Dois”, which won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2017, and “Grândola, Vila Morena”, the timeless song of the April revolution, are on the list.
What?
On Tuesday, the European Union Songbook Association launched the first songbook of the European Union.
It will include 164 songs from all over the European Union, voted between 2015 and 2024 by citizens from the 27 member states.
Among them are six songs Portuguese songs in six categories (within brackets):
Amar pelos dois (Love)
Canção do Mar (Nature)
Grândola, Vila Morena (Liberty and Peace)
Malhão, malhão (Popular and Traditional)
Foi Deus (Faith and Spirituality)
A Loja do Mestre André (Children’s).
The book and app are available throughout the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The app, which includes all 164 songs and links to YouTube, is free to download.
Background
The first songbook of the European Union was a huge project that required nine years of work to bring together 164 popular songs intended to represent the 27 countries of the Union, six titles for each member state with the convergence of 25 official languages (don’t look for Abba, they sang in English).
Traditional folk, children’s songs, themes of historical significance, and popular songs with no other intention than to please come together in this songbook, compiled with the participation of more than 100 musical organizations, 400 media outlets, and 87,000 citizens who contributed their individual vote.
The 164 themes are an invitation to navigate through the music of each country. The list includes songs like Bella Ciao or Le chant des partisans, linked to the anti-fascist struggle; Moja domovina, a Croatian song composed during the Yugoslav War, whose title means “My Croatia, my home”; Acolo este tara mea, which translates to “In my beloved land”, by Romanian poet Ioan Nenitescu set to music in 1945 by Tudor Gheorghe, while Finland directly offers its anthem, composed by Jean Sibelius.
Although many of the titles are as unknown as the artists who participate in Eurovision, the list stands out with popular names and titles such as the Belgian Jacques Brel, whose name appears three times (Ne me quitte pas, Bruxelles, and Mijn Vlakke Land), making him the most referenced in the entire catalog.
In Italy, they have not forgotten about Fabrizio de Andre and Il testamento de Tito, nor the Neapolitan classic O sole mio.
Ireland, on the other hand, contributes several folk songs, including Whiskey in the jar, popularized in the 70s thanks to the version by Thin Lizzy.
Precisely to better promote these topics is why the songbook - which will be expanded in the future with new songs - comes along with an app where you can listen to all the songs translated into English.
In this way, the aim is to facilitate access to the songs for the widest possible audience; “It is not meant to be perfect, but for a heart-to-heart dialogue,” states Danish Jeppe Marsling in a press release, the driving force behind a project born from civil society that has the support of 18 Ministers of Culture of the EU and has been awarded by the European Parliament with the European Citizen's Prize 2023.