Victor Hugo Morais Freitas
Abstract:
Sertanejo music, from its inception to the present day, has great prominence in the Brazilian music scene. This shows the great receptivity of the audience and also leads us to believe that there is an identifying relationship between the content of the songs and the reality experienced by their listeners. It's apparent that since its inception in 1929, sertanejo music has addressed themes about the Brazilian rural reality, this is easily noticeable in songs such as "Meu reino encantado", "Caboclo na cidade", "Saudade da minha terra" among others. This fact led to the following question: “To what extent do the reports about the reality of the rural worker present in sertanejo music match the reality described by geography?”. The present research sought to relate the contents of songs with the reality that geography describes on these same themes. For the accomplishment of this study, the methodological procedures consisted of a historical-geographic survey about how arises and what is the sertanejo music. Subsequently, a discourse analysis of sixty-four country songs covering different eras and themes was made. Finally, a statistical survey was conducted that analyzed the influence of geographic, economic and social changes on sertanejo music. For this a study was conducted based on two hundred and fifty songs. The results show that the sertanejo songs, at first, served as a mechanism to portray the rural reality and at the same time, occupied the function of preparing and conditioning the rural worker for city life. In addition, it was shown that sertanejo music, over time and due to the transformation of its audience, eventually moved away from its original theme (rural) and established itself as an urban product.
