Portugal. The Place.

Today is exactly one month since I started to live in Portugal, which makes a good occasion to talk a bit about musical team under name - Portugal. The Man.

There is not a single known connection between the band and Portugal, except a name. John Gourley - band's vocalist and musician - explains it as they wanted the band name to be something bigger than a person, and country as group of people satisfies this criteria. The Man states it is still about people.... Portugal itself was picked by John just as first country name he thought of. Honestly I don't fully get this explanation, but later I found out another interview, where John tells about idea of a book about his father - Portugal. The Man. Still not enough context to me, but I enjoy deepness of thinking here.

Anyway, band members are actually from Alaska! Probably this is the reason of deep meaning and so many layers in there hit songs. Have you ever watched Northern Exposure - American TV show filmed in 90th about Alaska? It's a story about New York doctor who goes to a small town in Alaska to work as the only one doctor there to repay his educational credit? This show had many seasons, and even though it's ending blurred too much, I enjoyed almost every single moment of it. It is filmed on film, which makes the whole picture bit grained and brings real feeling of the old movies. It has a lot of philosophical talks and reasonings. Almost every single character in that small town has own view on life, own judgements and can easily say 15mins monologue about sense of life!

One of the characters was a ex-prisoner, now radio DJ in this town. Long hair, great musical taste, extremely deep knowledge of books, philosophy and music. He sets musical cassettes and vinyls for people on radio every day, starting from questions, talking about things happened and diving into thoughts why it happened.

This is exact feeling which I have from music of Portugal. The Man. It is funny in a way, very light and easy, but also way too deep than you expect it to be. It brings history and old events back in life in a form of thoughts about reasons and human nature. But you can still dance and be happy when listening.