The Road to Ubatuba
Music + lyrics by Peter King
3:33 | :30 soundbite
Ubatuba is a beautiful old beach town in Brazil, in the state of
Sao Paulo. I started writing this song in a notebook on my first
trip to that complex and fascinating country. Brazil boasts magical
music, a mellifluous language (Portuguese, not Spanish) and people
who tend to be warm, present in the moment and comfortable in their
skins.
On my second trip there about two years later, I picked up with
this song where I had left off. This time I was able to visualize
the outline — the story I was trying to tell — and to
compose a few bars of the melody in my head. When I got back to
Pittsburgh, I made quick work of it, writing the music at home in
Aspinwall, and finishing the lyrics one night at Tazzo
D’Oro coffee house in Highland Park.
At first, the working title of this CD was “Goin’ Down
Swingin’.” But “The Road to Ubatuba” was
one title I knew I had never seen on any book or CD or DVD. Of course, later
I found out I was wrong. A guy at a Borders in the Boston airport was doing
a database search for my CD and discovered a 1997 jazz/Brazilian music CD called “Ubatuba” by
the late Kimson Plaut, an American keyboardist. It's sweet — check
it out.
And I'll bet there are at least a few more recordings titled “Ubatuba” by
Brazilian musicians relatively unknown in the U.S.
Nevertheless, the CD title “The Road to Ubatuba” was a little mysterious,
and it just kind of sang to me, so we went with it. Besides, many of the songs
on the disc are about travel, about having come a long way — either on
the road or in the heart:
On the road to Ubatuba
Where it rises and it bends
Until you cross the highest mountain
And the ocean never ends
Islands shimmer in the sunlight
In quiet bays white sails unfurl
On the road to Ubatuba
With my two Brazilian buddies
And a crazy German girl
On the road to Ubatuba
Singin’ Yankee rock ‘n’ roll
There’s a fire in the jungle
There’s a fire in my soul
A few hours up the coast is Rio
Maybe in a couple of days we’ll go
On the road to Ubatuba
Far from all my friends and family
With these folks I hardly know
On the road to Ubatuba
Where the purple flowers spill
The past is just a wisp of fog
The future hides behind a hill
I am only passing through this life
I’m a tourist in the world
On the road to Ubatuba
With my two Brazilian buddies
And a crazy German girl
Peter’s travel articles to Brazil
In my other life as a journalist, I have written several travel
articles about Brazil for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The title
track of my CD The Road to Ubatuba has
its prose counterpart in a section of “An
Invitation to Parati” below. It describes the drive east
from the interior of Sao Paulo state over the coastal mountains to
Brazil’s awe-inspiring Atlantic Ocean beaches. If
you’ve been there, you’ll already know. If not, you
should go.
Also, please be sure to check out the artful and evocative photos,
shot by the one and only Janice Vance … —Peter
King
These three articles are based on a trip to Parati, Brazil that
I took in November 2004:
An invitation to Parati: On Brazil's southeastern coast,
town extends warm welcome
Like a breeze in the trees, Brazilian music sways the
soul
If You Go: Parati, Brazil
These two are from trips to Rio and Ouro Preto that I took in
November 2002:
Saturday Diary: Music and money make a jangling noise when
Rio's sambistas go by
Ouro Preto is Brazil's crown jewel
Peter King’s music
The Road to Ubatuba
