“Sex is a Jungle of Epileptics” — Inside Rita Lee’s Anthem on Love and Sex

Former Os Mutantes singer Rita Lee‘s “Amor e Sexo” is famous enough in Brazil that everyone can sing along, and it’s lovely to see it sung by a crowd — and see how a catchy melody and screwy metaphors can cause a kind of (momentary) mass, chanted acceptance of love- and sex-positivity .

I was reminded of the 2003 hit from the “queen of Brazilian rock” by Chris Ryan (who previously appeared in this blog getting street-pissing advice from Dan Savage) on his podcast. There he said that the song “will give you some great insight into the difference between your culture and Brazilian culture when it comes to sex. It’s a very frank discussion of the difference between sex and love, and it’s a beautiful song — a song I doubt you would ever hear on an American radio station.”

I think he may overestimate the cultural contrast just a bit; there’s still plenty of sexual repression in Brazil, as everywhere. But it’s a fun, lovely radio hit, and it offers a particular vision of where love and sex diverge. “Love is prose/Sex is poetry” and “Love makes us pathetic/Sex is a jungle of epileptics”. But there’s overlap: “Love is forever” she sings, in one of my favorite lines, “and so is sex.”

Previously, the song has only been available in a bad translation on a lyrics site. Here’s a more precise translation; I’ve tried for closeness of meaning (though it’s a bit open to interpretation), sometimes at the expense of the lyrical flow of the original (anyway, I’m hoping nobody will ever sing this song in English). As far as I can determine, the song was written by Rita Lee and her partner and producer Roberto de Carvalho.

Thanks to Rosana Anjos, Anne Haggerson and Claudia D’Agostino Béreaud for their advice.

1. A bit more creative but not unfair translation comes from Anne Haggerson: Sex is kinky good/Love is cozy good ↩︎