There’s something comforting about the idea that certain events or connections are “meant to be” – that there’s some larger pattern or purpose to our lives. Many people find meaning in interpreting significant events as part of a larger plan.
On the other hand, I’m drawn to the perspective that we have genuine agency in shaping our lives, and that the future isn’t predetermined. There’s something powerful about the idea that our choices and actions genuinely matter in determining what happens.
Some philosophical traditions try to reconcile these views – suggesting that perhaps certain broad patterns might be destined while specific details remain under our control, or that destiny might operate at a higher level while still allowing for free choice within certain parameters.
I would say I don’t believe in fate but, I’m Portuguese….
Fado, as a music genre, is deeply tied to the Portuguese concept of saudade—a mix of longing, nostalgia, and fate. The very word “Fado” comes from the Latin fatum, meaning “fate” or “destiny,” reflecting the idea that life’s joys and sorrows are inescapable.
Even if you don’t fully believe in fate, Fado embodies a cultural perspective where destiny plays a role in shaping human experiences—especially in love, loss, and hardship. The music suggests that some emotions and events are inevitable, but at the same time, Fado is an expression of personal agency, as singers pour their souls into shaping the narrative.
Portuguese culture carries a certain introspective melancholy—not just in Fado but also in literature, poetry, and even the way history is remembered. There’s a balance between accepting sorrow as part of life and finding beauty in it.
Saudade and Fado are deeply intertwined with Portuguese history, emerging from and reflecting the nation’s unique historical experiences.
Portugal’s identity was profoundly shaped by the Age of Discoveries (15th-16th centuries), when this small nation became a global maritime empire. This period created a culture of separation and longing – sailors and explorers left home for years or forever, families were torn apart, and communities lived with constant absence. Saudade developed as an emotional response to this collective experience of separation.
The economic structure of this maritime empire meant Portugal was often looking outward rather than developing internally. When ships didn’t return or imperial ventures failed, this created a cultural pattern of anticipation followed by disappointment – another dimension of saudade.
After this golden age came Portugal’s long decline – the loss of independence to Spain (1580-1640), the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the Napoleonic invasions, the loss of Brazil, and the political turmoil of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This historical arc from glory to struggle embedded a sense of lost grandeur in Portuguese cultural consciousness.
Fado emerged in the early 19th century primarily in working-class urban neighborhoods of Lisbon, coinciding with a period of national difficulty. It became a musical expression of this complex historical experience – not just personal longing but a collective cultural memory of past greatness contrasted with present difficulties.
During the Salazar dictatorship (1933-1974), this backward-looking tendency was sometimes exploited – the regime used a sanitized version of Fado and the concept of saudade in its propaganda. Yet authentic Fado remained a vital way for common people to express their emotional relationship with fate and history.
Eduardo Lourenço described Portugal as suffering from “hyperidentity” – an excessive preoccupation with national identity and destiny based on a mythologized past. Saudade and Fado became cultural spaces where this complex relationship with history could be emotionally processed rather than just intellectually analyzed.
This historical context helps explain why Fado approaches fate emotionally rather than philosophically – it emerged as a way for people to express and make sense of their lived historical experience rather than to theorize about it.
A lot of musical landscapes could exemplify this, I chose my favorite. No Teu Poema / In your Poem. A magnificent poem written by José Luís Tinoco , first sang by Carlos do Carmo in 1976, and here in my absolute favorite version by Amor Electro. Not Fado as such but the melancholy is still there.
This is a beautiful example of how the Portuguese poetic tradition captures both resignation and resistance. The lyrics acknowledge pain, struggle, and fate (a sina de quem nasce fraco ou forte), but they also hold space for courage (o passo da coragem em casa escura), hope (a esperança acesa atrás do muro), and an open future (um verso em branco à espera do futuro). A blank verse without measure exists. It suggests that within fate’s poem, there are still unwritten spaces. These are moments of possibility within destiny’s framework.
Perhaps most powerful is “A dor que sei de cor, mas não recito” (The pain I know by heart, but do not recite). This suggests that fate’s pain is so deeply internalized that it need not be explained or philosophized about—it simply exists as emotional knowledge.
For me, this song beautifully captures how Fado approaches fate—not by explaining why things happen, but by emotionally inhabiting the experience of living within destiny’s constraints while finding both beauty and dignity in that condition.
It’s like life is shaped by forces beyond our control—fate, history, circumstance—but within that, there’s still the individual’s voice, the choice to fight, to persist, or to find meaning. Do you feel like this duality is part of your own outlook on life?
No teu poema
Existe um verso em branco e sem medida
Um corpo que respira, um céu aberto
Janela debruçada para a vida
No teu poema
Existe a dor calada lá no fundo
O passo da coragem em casa escura
E aberta, uma varanda para o mundo
Existe a noite
O riso e a voz refeita à luz do dia
A festa da senhora da agonia
E o cansaço do corpo que adormece em cama fria
No teu poema
Existe o grito e o eco da metralha
A dor que sei de cor mas não recito
E os sonos inquietos de quem falha
No teu poema
Existe um cantochão alentejano
A rua e o pregão de uma varina
E um barco assoprado à todo o pano
Existe a noite
O canto em vozes juntas, vozes certas
Canção de uma só letra e um só destino a embarcar
O cais da nova nau das descobertas
Existe um rio
A sina de quem nasce fraco, ou forte
O risco, a raiva a luta de quem cai ou que resiste
Que vence ou adormece antes da morte
No teu poema
Existe a esperança acesa atrás do muro
Existe tudo mais que ainda me escapa
E um verso em branco à espera
Do futuro
In your poem
There is a blank verse, boundless and free
A body that breathes, an open sky
A window leaning into life
In your poem
There is silent pain deep within
The step of courage in a darkened home
And open, a balcony to the world
There is the night
Laughter and a voice remade by daylight
The feast of Our Lady of Agony
And the weariness of a body
That falls asleep in a cold bed
In your poem
There is the cry and the echo of gunfire
The pain I know by heart but never recite
And the restless sleep of those who fail
In your poem
There is an Alentejan chant
The street and the call of a fishmonger
And a ship blown forward at full sail
There is the night
The song in voices joined, voices sure
A tune with just one word, one shared fate
Embarking from the dock
Of a new ship of discoveries
There is a river
The destiny of those born weak, or strong
The risk, the rage, the struggle
Of those who fall or those who resist
Who triumph or fall asleep before death
In your poem
There is hope burning beyond the wall
There is everything else I cannot yet grasp
And a blank verse waiting
For the future
To be continued ….
References
Photo: Artur Pastor – Heavenly Light
The Power and Limits of Cultural Myths in Portugal’s Search for a Post-Imperial Role
“The Zenith of our National History!”
Fado History at Museu do Fado
Stories from A Closet of Errors 