Forgiveness: Ana Costa with Oswaldo Cavalo and "Pra Que Pedir Perdão"

Today's random song, Pra Que Pedir Perdão, is by Ana Costa with Oswaldo Cavalo. The song is about asking forgiveness for pain inflicted on someone else by the singer. How often do we do things for which we should ask forgiveness, and how often do we ask forgiveness when we don't need to? For example, Megan is always asking forgiveness - in her family they learned to say "I'm sorry" for practically any time a person expresses some sort of discomfort. What it has done is make the asking of forgiveness less meaningful. On the other hand, I don't ask forgiveness enough and have many times done things that I should apologize for but have not. Pride and fear get in my way. Supposedly, my Catholic faith is based on forgiveness, but forgiveness is sorely lacking in society today - a person makes a mistake and goes to jail and does time for their crime, but lives with the crime for the rest of their life - a victim of unforgiving society which means they won't get a job, will struggle to find housing, and will find few situations where they can get a leg up. Truly, there are some people who cannot be forgiven, but I believe most can and should. I'm an optimist that way. Most of us are not, it seems.

A singer of samba, the lively Brazilian music that provided the basis for bossa nova, she is one of the newer voices carrying the samba torch. She started in rough bars in a region just north of Rio de Janeiro, and was one of the founders of the all-female samba group Roda de Saia, later known as O Roda. She joined Martinho Da Vila's daughter Mart'nalia in a band and toured Brazil, the US and Europe, and began eventually to write songs. Pra Que Pedir Perdão can be found on her 2005 album Meu Carnival, and on the Putumayo Presents: Brazilian Cafe (2009).