Girl from Ipanema

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Joao Gilberto

Brasil is the most romantic place on earth.

[mshatty Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close mshatty]

Simple and very nice. Thanks.

[rklein01 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close rklein01]

Here's a younger Jobim, sharing the song with Frank Sinatra
YouTube - Tom Jobim and Frank Sinatra

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Here's a younger Jobim, sharing the song with Frank Sinatra
YouTube - Tom Jobim and Frank Sinatra

That's a great find. It really shows you the difference in feel of the song when a brasilian sings it. They have a very nasal tone when they talk and sing and it really makes their bossa nova and sambas very sultry.

I've been to the Girl from Ipanema bar a few times. It's off the beach on a side road. But, it's a great open air bar. Food is so-so, but it's a great spot to check out when going to Rio.

[Faust Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Faust]

Popular myth has it that the song was inspired by Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (now Helô Pinheiro), an 18 year old girl who lived on Montenegro street in the fashionable Ipanema district of Rio de Janeiro. Every day, she would stroll past the popular "Veloso" bar-cafe on the way to the beach, attracting the attention of regulars Jobim and Moraes.

The song in fact was originally composed for a musical comedy entitled Dirigível (Blimp), which was a work in progress of Vinícius de Moraes. The original title was "Menina que Passa" ("The Girl Who Passes by"), and the famous first verse was completely different. Jobim composed the melody meticulously on the piano at his new home in Rua Barão da Torre, in Ipanema. Vinícius, in turn, had written the lyrics in Petrópolis, near Rio, as he had done with "Chega de Saudade" six years earlier, and it took him just as much work.

The true part of the myth is that the composers did in fact know Helô Pinto and later connected the song's creation with her. They saw her pass by as they sat in the Veloso bar, during the winter of 1962— not just once, but several times, and not always on her way to the beach but also on her way to school, to the dressmaker, and even to the dentist. Mostly because she was 5 feet, 8 inches tall (173 cm), with green eyes and long, flowing black hair, lived in Rua Montenegro and was already the object of much admiration among patrons of the Veloso, where she would frequently stop to buy cigarettes for her mother—and leave to a cacophony of wolf-whistles.[1] She has been famous for this connection ever since the song became popular.

In Revelação: a verdadeira Garota de Ipanema (Revealed: The Real Girl from Ipanema) Moraes wrote that she was:

"o paradigma do bruto carioca; a moça dourada, misto de flor e sereia, cheia de luz e de graça mas cuja a visão é também triste, pois carrega consigo, a caminho do mar, o sentimento da beleza que passa, da beleza que não é só nossa — é um dom da vida em seu lindo e melancólico fluir e refluir constante."
which roughly translates to:

'"the exemplar of the raw Carioca: a golden-tanned girl, a mixture of flower and mermaid, full of brightness and grace, the sight of whom is also sad, in that she carries with her, on her route to the sea, the feeling of beauty that fades, of the beauty that is not ours alone — it is a gift of life in its constant, beautiful and melancholic ebb and flow."
Today, "Montenegro Street" is called "Vinicius de Moraes Street", and the "Veloso Bar" is named "A Garota de Ipanema". There is also a "Garota de Ipanema" Park in the nearby Arpoador neighborhood.