The lyrics, sparse and repetitive, chant:
In a 2005 interview for the documentary O Universo Musical de Hermeto Pascoal , he held up a crude drawing: “Look: the dragon is the dictatorship. The dragon is the radio playing bad music. The dragon is the musician who plays only notes from the book. São Jorge is my whistle. He stabs the dragon and out comes samba. Out comes the sound of the rain.” hermeto pascoal sao jorge
For an artist like Hermeto—who constantly fights against musical convention, censorship (he suffered during the Brazilian military dictatorship), and the physical limitations of instruments—São Jorge/Ogum is the perfect spiritual patron. Hermeto’s music is the sound of a machete clearing jungle brush. It is aggressive, metallic, rhythmic, and impossibly fertile. The lyrics, sparse and repetitive, chant: In a
This is the genius of Hermeto’s religious music. It is not liturgical. It is ontological . São Jorge is not an escape from the world, but a lens to see the world’s violence and beauty more clearly. São Jorge is my whistle