Aposentado literally means 'retired', usually referring to someone who has stopped working. However, in this song, Marisa Monte uses it in a beautiful and poetic way to describe the state of her heart.
She sings, "Já estava aposentado, sem nenhuma ilusão" (My heart was already retired, without any illusion). This metaphor suggests her heart had given up on love, much like a person retires from a career, making it a unique and memorable word in this context.
This is such a sweet and happy song! Marisa Monte sings about the incredible feeling of finding love when you've completely given up on it. She starts with a huge sigh of relief: "Ainda bem / Que agora encontrei você" (Thank goodness / I found you now). It's like she can't believe her luck, wondering what she did to deserve this person.
Before this new love, she felt totally alone and overlooked. She says "ninguém / Dava nada por mim" (nobody / bet anything on me), and she had even "desacreditei de mim" (lost faith in myself). Her heart was so used to being alone that she calls it "aposentado" (retired) and "maltratado" (mistreated). But then, this new person arrives and changes everything. They didn't just show up for a little while, "Você veio pra ficar" (You came to stay), making her happy and making her sing again.
Marisa Monte grew up in Rio de Janeiro, born into a musical family: her mother sang and her father worked as a musical director. She trained her voice with an opera teacher before turning to popular music, and by the late 1980s she had become a central figure in Música Popular Brasileira, an alto who moves easily between samba, jazz, pop, and soul within a single record.
Her 1994 album Verde, Anil, Amarelo, Cor de Rosa e Carvão carried her music well beyond Brazil, and she has since won four Latin Grammy Awards. In 2002 she teamed up with Arnaldo Antunes and Carlinhos Brown to form Tribalistas, whose self-titled album sold more than two million copies across Latin America. She followed it by releasing two solo records on the same day in 2006, Universo ao Meu Redor and Infinito Particular, and has collected eight Brazilian Music Awards and seven MTV Video Music Brazil trophies over her career.