☝️ Key Points
- The lyrics of the song 'The Coffee Song' by Frank Sinatra humorously depict the importance of coffee in Brazil, presenting a world where coffee permeates every aspect of life.
- The lyrics emphasize the enormous production and export of coffee in Brazil with lines like 'Coffee beans grow by the billions' and 'They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil'.
- Other beverages, such as cherry soda, tea, or tomato juice, are portrayed in a funny way as being displaced by the dominance of coffee.
- In the fictional world of the song's lyrics, coffee is so central that even drinking water, for example, a politician's daughter, is punished.
- There are humorous references to the use of coffee in unusual contexts, such as perfume making, sea percolation, or as an ingredient in ketchup and pickles.
Interpretation
The lyrics of
Frank Sinatra's song 'The Coffee Song' humorously and exaggeratedly describe the dominance of coffee in Brazilian culture and economy. Brazil is known for its huge coffee plantations and the significant contribution that coffee exports make to its national income. The lyrics of the song place this fact in a humorous context and imagine a world where coffee is so ubiquitous that it permeates every aspect of daily life.
In the lines 'Coffee beans grow by the billions' and 'They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil', the enormous scale of coffee production in Brazil is highlighted. The lines 'You can't get cherry soda' and 'No tea or tomato juice' comically show how other beverages are displaced by the dominance of coffee.
The line 'The politician's daughter / Was accused of drinking water / And was fined a great big fifty dollar bill' is an ironic exaggeration that shows how central coffee is in this fictional version of Brazil. Even drinking water is punished.
The song lyrics also play on the use of coffee in unusual contexts, such as in the lines 'Her perfume was made right on the grill / Why they could percolate the ocean in Brazil' and 'Coffee ketchup gives 'em flavor / Coffee pickles way outsell the dill'. These humorous exaggerations underscore the central theme of the song: the ubiquity and importance of coffee in Brazil.