Religiousness in Gilberto Gil: “I see religion as culture”

Thus, when the singer and songwriter offers to talk about religion, the subject almost always turns to faith and a divinity that is light, not a personification of human expectations.

When we take, as a first example, “Se eu quiser falar com Deus” (1981), we can see the exceedingly human in those who search for religiousness as a meeting with the divine.

Se eu quiser falar com Deus / If I want to talk to God
Tenho que me aventurar / I have to put myself out there
Tenho que subir aos céus / I have to go to heavens
Sem cordas pra segurar / With no rope to climb on
Tenho que dizer adeus / I have to say goodbye
Dar as costas, caminhar / Turn my back, walk
Decidido, pela estrada / Determined on the road
Que ao findar, vai dar em nada / Which in the end, ends with nothing
Nada, nada, nada, nada / Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing
(...)
Do que eu pensava encontrar / Of what I hoped to find

Certo ou errado até / Right or wrong
A fé vai onde quer que eu vá / Faith goes wherever I want it to
Oh oh
A pé ou de avião / By foot or on a plane
Mesmo a quem não tem fé / Even for those who have no faith
A fé costuma acompanhar / Faith is usually with them
Oh oh
Pelo sim, pelo não / Just in case
Andá com fé eu vou / I’m gonna walk in faith
Que a fé não costuma faiá / ’Cause faith doesn’t usually fail

Gil has always dealt with religion’s dogmatic interface. Educated in a Catholic school, with experience in Umbanda after growing up, the son of Xangô started dedicating himself to Candomblé—but not as diligently as his wife, manager Flora Gil.

“There can’t even be a comparison between me and Flora,” he said, laughing, in an interview. “Today, she is a practitioner of Candomblé, having been initiated 22 years ago, and is devoted to the whole ritualistic universe. Flora is a Candomblé insider,” he concluded.

The singer and songwriter also said that his entrance into Candomblé was extemporaneous and came because that faith arose in him an intellectual, political, and philosophical awareness of the world, much more than a properly religious one.

“Candomblé started existing to me when I became interested in the cultural dimension of African and Afro-Brazilian contributions, then it came naturally and necessarily. The first time I went to a Candomblé yard was when I came back from exile (1972). It was a late entry.”

This is the message, for instance, in the song “Minha ideologia, minha religião,” released in 1985 in album Dia Dorim Noite Neon. The song is structured as a mantra, with only two verses that go on in perpetuum mobile:

These verses, stringed together, translate Gil’s thinking about religion: freeing oneself from the “meagre box of religious views or religious territories claimed by each religion,” as the artist said in an interview.

“This song’s first message is inter-religiosity, all religions have to talk amongst themselves. God, if He is God, is everyone’s God, is a God for everyone. His name or how we call him—light, for instance—doesn’t matter,” he sentenced.

This virtuous cycle proposed by music makes his view of religion also as a political instance apparent, but not in the common sense of governance, public management, party affiliation.

And yes, politics understood as its philosophical principle of a space for debating the common sense—or, as philosopher Aristotle would have it, a mechanism that has, as its point of start and arrival, men’s happiness.

The other role of religion, for Gil, would be to give the faithful the ability to be empowered and combative. In his view, religion can’t work as a shaper of human diversity or a dispensary of prejudice.

Religion must fulfill is first job of preaching love and tolerance, but be aware of any attempt on the collective human dimension.

“I, for instance, wrote the song ‘Guerra santa’ to denounce the aggression of one religion on another, which was the case with a pastor from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God kicking an image of Our Lady of Aparecida…

“… So, lots of the references to religious issues present in my songs are tied to this political dimension of religion. That’s how it was in the albums Um banda um, Obatalá, which I released in honor of Mother Carmem…