Que cidade sonora é essa?: Tom Zé e as reverberações de cidades

Abstract

This dissertation aims to explore the relationship between subject, city, and song through a detailed and multifaceted analysis of Tom Zé's work, covering the period from 1968 to 1978. The research starts from the understanding that the city is not limited to its technical, planning, and disciplinary aspects but, turning the modern urbanism inside out, , it is singular-plural in nature, as it is intersected by subjectivities and practices that modify it and provoke other ways of experiencing it, thus, in constant movement. It also understands that music, especially in its song form, is an aesthetic and poetic expression with a strong popular presence, shaping urban imaginaries. Ultimately, what weaves and gives meaning to such relationships is the subject: one who is a becoming, open to interferences and who constitutes themselves in this eternal becoming-others, therefore, also in constant movement. Thus, it is believed that music-song is present in the movement of understanding oneself in a place as a constituent mark of the subject in a territory, in a dwelling. By dividing the research into Side A and Side B, it was possible to address both the more formal and academic aspects as well as the experimental and subjective ones, reflecting the duality present in old musical media such as vinyl records and cassette tapes. Side A presents the fundamental concepts and historical contexts of the research, providing the basis for what will be presented in Side B. The latter, in turn, innovatively and interactively explores the intersections between subject-city-song, always permeated by the aspects: accent-body-repetition. Through diverse topics ranging from urban experience to des-canção and the construction of a fabulated Irará, the work shows how Tom Zé uses urban issues and tensions of daily life to compose his songs and, with this, re-signifies spaces and times, besides offering other perspectives to think about urban daily life in a more instigating and poetic way.