20/08/2026

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‘It’s a heartache...’ Fans bid farewell to Bonnie Tyler o Total Eclipse of the Heart singer deeply loved, mourned by Welsh hometown

AS presidential campaigns ramp up in Brazil, the frontrunners are making their pitches to voters in a medium the nation is famous for: Irresistible grooves. A nostalgic riff on a funk carioca classic celebrates the working-class roots of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. His leading challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has a foot-stomping country anthem steeped in faith and rural culture. Both draw on a rich tradition of campaign jingles in a country where street vendors and sound trucks have long gotten feet moving with catchy tunes. But the contrasts in their choice of genres, lyrics and images in accompanying music videos speak volumes about how the race is shaping up. Favela funk Silva’s Rap borrows from a 1995 hit in the baile funk scene that sprang from the slums of Rio de Janeiro H UNDREDS of people joined mourners recently for the funeral of Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, with fans singing along to the star’s song It’s a Heartache as her coffin was carried into church. The husky-voiced star, known for a string of hits including Total Eclipse of the Heart , died in Portugal last month aged 75. More than 1,000 people gathered outside the church ahead of the funeral in south Wales, which was also livestreamed. There was applause as a hearse carrying her white coffin – covered with white roses and lilies and etched with a small hand holding a microphone and a treble clef – arrived at Swansea Minster, which was packed with family and friends. It’s a Heartache and another of her hits, If I Sing You A Love Song , were played as pallbearers carried the casket into the minster. “She is a Welsh icon. She was a beautiful person. She never changed,” 75-year-old retiree Bette Richards told AFP. The funeral also featured Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water performed by a male voice choir. Another Swansea resident John Edwards, 70, paid tribute to a star who was also very much “an ordinary person” and “one of us”. “I feel proud... Everybody loves her. It is a big loss,” he said. A life ‘well-lived’ Tyler died in hospital in Faro in southern Portugal on July 8. In a eulogy, Tyler’s long-time tour manager Matt Davis remembered a star who could “command any stage” and led a “big and well lived” life. A male voice choir sang a mournful, slow version of Total Eclipse as her funeral drew to a close. Tyler’s death came after she was placed in an induced coma to aid her recovery after emergency surgery in May. The Grammy-nominated singer, whose real name was Gaynor Hopkins, was born and raised in a traditional coal-mining village northwest

to tell the story of Silva’s rise from humble origins to become a union leader, president and now an icon of the global left. “He was just another Silva,” goes the refrain borrowed from the original, using Brazil’s most common surname to connect the three-term president with the common man. “He has the soul of the people and looks like one of us,” the song continues over a montage of highlights from the 80-year-old president’s public life. For MC Bob Rum, who wrote the original 1995 track, its role in a presidential campaign marks a coming of age for a genre long stigmatised for its humble origins and provocative lyrics. “This could not have happened even 10 years ago. Our generation suffered a lot of persecution,” he said. Marcelo Vitorino, an electoral marketing consultant and professor, said Silva’s use of rap and of Swansea. In recent years, she had split her time between Wales and Portugal, where she had a holiday home. She shot to fame in the 1970s with hits including Lost in France and It’s a Heartache. Total Eclipse of the Heart later topped the charts in Britain and the US. Tyler also hit the charts with Holding Out for a Hero in 1984, which featured on the soundtrack to the huge US box office success Footloose . At the time she was taken ill, she had been about to start a European tour in Malta to mark 50 years since the release of Lost in France , which was her breakthrough hit in 1976. Mourners and fans gather outside St Mary’s Church during a ‘celebration of life’ ceremony for Tyler.

Crowds line the streets to pay their respects as a hearse carrying Tyler’s coffin is driven through her Welsh hometown of Mumbles.

Brazil presidential race ramps up with catchy campaign earworms

funk was aimed less at persuading new voters than at energising his progressive base. “It’s the space of the marginalised – the outskirts, funk and rap. That’s already Silva’s territory. So, maybe he’s trying to rally a dedicated following for a battle,”Vitorino said. Heartland anthem By contrast, the conservative 45-year-old Flavio, only slightly trailing in the polls, has released Come With Faith , an AI-generated song which eschews the candidate’s biography to focus on the promise of a brighter tomorrow. With a chest-beating anthem steeped in the sertanejo country music associated with Brazil’s rural interior, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro offers himself as a champion of the heartland’s conservative values. The lyrics make seven mentions of “faith” and repeated calls to “hope” and “believe”, appealing to a growing evangelical Christian electorate that voted heavily for Flavio’s father. “These words captivate people,” said Gilberto Musto, a campaign marketing consultant and author on electoral communications. In the song’s video, clips of the candidate wearing a cowboy hat and blowing a traditional horn used by cattle drivers help to play up the Rio lawyer’s affinity with a booming farm country where agribusiness leaders show deep resistance to the current government. Both sides are expected to release new jingles and videos as the campaigns progress. Music’s enduring role Musto said Silva’s and Flavio’s songs are “the right choices for the moment”, updating a storied tradition of Brazilian campaign jingles. Campaign songs draw on a tradition of street vendors using music to attract customers and help reach voters in a country with low literacy rates historically, said Dr Kjetil Klette Bohler, who studies

the role of music in Brazilian politics at the University of South-Eastern Norway and is writing a book on the phenomenon. Silva’s first presidential run in 1989 featured a now classic jingle with the chorus of Lula lá that has made a reprise in each of the six presidential campaigns that would follow. Bohler said Brazilian campaigns are also choosing musical genres increasingly as political signals, with sertanejo more closely associated with Flavio’s conservative movement while samba, funk and other Afro-Brazilian traditions are often embraced by the left. Silva “could have chosen a Mozart opera. Instead, he chose a funk track that demonstrates his closeness to the everyday – to the ordinary citizen from humble, marginal communities,” MC Bob said. – Reuters Flavio’s AI-generated song panders to Brazil’s religious voting bloc.

Silva’s choice of song suggests he is working to energise his left-wing base. – PICS FROM REUTERS