A classic anti-war song, very appropriate now in March 2022. The "Girl with the sad eyes" of the title is waiting for her soldier to come home from an overseas war. But he won't be coming back - the war has taken him. The song is particularly associated with the wars Portugal fought in its African colonies Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, starting in 1961 and only ending in 1974 with the Portuguese revolution. The words were actually written earlier, and may have been about another war. The poem was set to music by Zeca Afonso after the African wars had started, with the first recorded version coming out around 1964. It was sung by Adriano Correia de Oliveira. Zeca released his own version in 1969 with a different guitar accompaniment. Music with such obvious anti-war sentiment was liable to be banned in Portugal at the time, so it was often also released in France. Now this song has become a standard, performed by many artists, both amateur and professional. This modern version is by a group associated with the Faculty of Medicine at Lisbon University. Please correct me if I have any details wrong. But this beautiful song deserves to be more widely heard.
