The song "Deslocado" (Displaced) is a tribute to Madeirans and migrants. For Nicole Pontes-Coelho, it provided a way to connect with her home country while living far away, while prompting her to reflect on the migrant experience.
O mar de gente, o Sol diferente
O monte de betão não me provoca nada
Não me convoca casa
(The sea of people, the different sun, the concrete hills, don’t stir anything in me. They don’t feel like home)
– Deslocado by Napa
Being from Madeira, I grew up hearing stories about people who left the island. These ranged from people moving to mainland Portugal for university to leaving the country altogether, looking for better opportunities and a higher standard of living. All of these accounts came accompanied by the description of a feeling of deep nostalgia and desire to return that I never fully understood until I emigrated.
Three years ago, I moved to Dublin to pursue my studies, and it was then that I fully understood the feeling that many had tried to describe. I too, found it difficult to define and felt that I couldn't fully express it, no matter how much I tried. How do you put into words, missing your parents' birthday, them missing yours, having the impression that your friendships are slowly drifting, feeling helpless as you are not there to support friends and family in their time of need, and missing celebrations that you neglected in the past? How can one begin to describe the feeling of making a life for oneself in one place while simultaneously feeling that they are losing a life they had somewhere else?
I never thought that there would be something that could sum up such a feeling. I was gladly mistaken. This year, a Madeiran band, Napa, represented Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest with a song titled “Deslocado” (Displaced), which perfectly encapsulates this sentiment. The song is a beautiful ode to feeling a deep longing for home, “de ter saudades”.
In an interview for Elle Lithuania, the band was asked to describe the song in three words. The words they chose were home, Madeira, and “saudade”. “Saudade” is a complex and unique feeling deeply ingrained in Portuguese culture and soul. It is usually translated and described as a mixture of nostalgia, melancholy, longing, and yearning. However, it cannot be summarised so easily. It goes beyond the sadness felt over something or someone that is absent. It is an emotion that contains a strong bond to what has been lost, creating a sense that something is missing, a feeling of incompleteness.
Despite describing a feeling that seems to be exclusively related to Portuguese people, especially those from Madeira, and placing 21st in the Eurovision Final, the song skyrocketed, gaining considerable attention on all social media platforms. As it stands, the song has been streamed over 76 million times on Spotify and used in over 850 thousand TikToks and 165 thousand Instagram reels.
What at first seemed to be a song about an experience that only people from Madeira live through rapidly became a song that people from everywhere could relate to. Since being released in March, the song has been the main focus in discussions about migration, whether that is how difficult it is, the challenges that it brings, despite the opportunities it provides, or the homesickness that accompanies it. Deslocado has therefore been used by migrants to portray their personal experiences of “displacement”.
Even the song’s music video illustrates the experience of migrating, as throughout the video, videos submitted by fans were used. These short clips outline the life of migrants by depicting goodbyes at airports, views from aeroplanes, different landscapes and architectures, snippets of their life in a different place and reunions with family and friends.
Not only has the song been used in posts showcasing the experience of migrants from every corner of the world, but it has also been used in posts honouring people’s home countries and towns. This allowed those who might not have moved countries, but who still moved to another state, district or city, to voice their experience of leaving home.
UCD, at the beginning of this academic year, used the song in one of its posts, congratulating new students and portraying the university as a place for all. This not only gave me a sense of comfort, as the culture and language of my home country, for a small moment, merged with a crucial part of the life I have here now, UCD, but it also inspired me to think about all the other students who have a similar experience to mine.
A large part of the student body in UCD are international students who would also understand the struggles of leaving home, moving to a new country with a completely different culture and sometimes even a different language. This is prevalent around campus with the existence of UCD Global and many societies, such as the International Students Society.
It is also crucial to mention all of the students who moved from all over Ireland to study in UCD. Despite facing different challenges, these students also understand the feeling of being away from home, friends, family, and the fear of going to a new place. They, too, are “deslocados”.
I now invite you to listen to the song and to look up a translation to fully understand its message. Even if you are not a migrant, I ask you to listen to it and think of your friends and family who have been through this experience or who are currently living through it. You can even watch the band perform live with them here in Dublin on the 6th of November at The Grand Social, showing them that they are not alone, and that many people know what it's like to be a migrant.