Heartbreaking Lyrical Ontology / Ontologia Lírica Comovente: Aldir Blanc and Popular Music as Guides to Carioca Modes of Being in the World

Aldir Blanc died of COVID-19, leaving behind a singular body of work, one that deeply shaped Brazilian popular music and also serves as a guide to Carioca modes of engaging the world. Blanc was one of Brazil’s greatest lyricists, cowriter of hundreds of popular songs. His short stories buttressed and expanded his work as a lyricist. Most of this work is about Rio de Janeiro, and even when it is not, it tends to embody a Carioca spirit—it is florid, earthy, subversive, and suffused with love for the gritty, obstreperous, and heartbreaking moments of everyday life. This chapter synthesizes key themes in Blanc’s work and interprets them as a method for engaging life in the contemporary global city: reject overweening authority; don’t snitch; be a flaneur; know yourself (but expect to continue making the same mistakes); cultivate an appreciation of the vulgar without eschewing the sensual and absurd.