Até Ao Verão Lyrics in English by Ana Moura
Quimera translates to "chimera" or "fantasy." It's a beautiful and somewhat rare word that evokes a sense of an elusive dream or an impossible ideal.
In the song, Ana Moura sings about a "rosa e quimera que me encravam na memória que inventei" (rose and chimera that get stuck in the memory I invented). This suggests a longing for something imagined or unattainable, adding a layer of poetic depth to her reflections on past seasons and emotions.
In "Até Ao Verão," Ana Moura sings from a place of restless surrender. She opens with "Deixei" ("I left"), then traces what she left behind "na Primavera" ("in Spring") — the scent of a rose and a chimera that got away from her, a fantasy she couldn't hold onto. She walks on like someone bracing for failure, dragging an old wound through streets full of disdain, and settles into a kind of fatalism: "E a mim que importa, se é bem ou mal, se me falha a cor da chama, é-me igual" ("And what do I care, if it's good or bad, if the flame's color fails me, it's all the same to me"). There's no going back for her — "Vim sem volta" ("I came with no turning back") — and no real choice in it either, since life will do with her as it pleases "até ao verão" ("until summer"), an ending she can only wait out, not control.
It's a fado in the truest sense: not despair exactly, but a weary, almost defiant acceptance of fate, dressed in imagery of seasons turning and fire fading rather than plain complaint.
