"Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema") is a

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian

bossa nova Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovat ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by

Antônio Carlos Jobim Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (25 January 1927 – 8 December 1994), also known as Tom Jobim (), was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger, and singer. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian mu ...

and Portuguese lyrics by

Vinícius de Moraes Marcus Vinícius da Cruz e Mello Moraes (19 October 1913 – 9 July 1980), better known as Vinícius de Moraes () and nicknamed O Poetinha ("The little poet"), was a Brazilian poet, diplomat, lyricist, essayist, musician, singer, and playwrigh ...

. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel. The first commercial recording was in 1962, by

Pery Ribeiro Pery Ribeiro (27 October 1937 – 24 February 2012) was a Brazilian singer of bossa nova, MPB and jazz, active as a singer from 1959 until shortly before his death. Biography Pery Ribeiro was born Peri Oliveira Martins on 27 October 1937, son o ...

. The

Stan Getz Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre ...

recording featuring the vocal debut of

Astrud Gilberto Astrud Gilberto (; born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, March 29, 1940) is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She gained international attention in the 1960s following her recording of the song " The Girl from Ipanema". Biography Astrud Gilber ...

became an international hit. This version had been shortened from the version on the album '' Getz/Gilberto'' (recorded in March 1963, released in March 1964), which had also included the Portuguese lyrics sung by Astrud's then husband João Gilberto. In the US, the single peaked at number five on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and went to number one for two weeks on the

Easy Listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, ...

chart. Overseas it peaked at number 29 in the United Kingdom, and charted highly throughout the world. Numerous recordings have been used in films, sometimes as an elevator music

cliché A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...

. It is believed to be the second most recorded pop song in history, after " Yesterday" by

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

. The song was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

to be added to the

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservat ...

History

The song was composed for a musical comedy titled ''Dirigível'' ("

Airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

"), then a work in progress of

Vinicius de Moraes Marcus Vinícius da Cruz e Mello Moraes (19 October 1913 – 9 July 1980), better known as Vinícius de Moraes () and nicknamed O Poetinha ("The little poet"), was a Brazilian poet, diplomat, lyricist, essayist, musician, singer, and playwrigh ...

. The original title was "Menina que Passa" ("The Girl Who Passes By"); the first verse was different. Jobim composed the melody on his piano in his new house in Rua Barão da Torre, in Ipanema. In turn, Moraes had written the lyrics in Petrópolis, near Rio de Janeiro, as he had done with "

Chega de Saudade "Chega de Saudade" (), also known as "No More Blues", is a bossa nova jazz standard. It is often considered to be the first bossa nova song to be recorded. Like " The Girl from Ipanema", the music for "Chega de Saudade" was composed by Antônio C ...

" ("No More Blues") six years earlier. While firmly rooted in bossa nova, "The Girl from Ipanema" includes influences from

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

and

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of History of music publishing, music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the American popular music, popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It origin ...

. During a recording session in New York with João Gilberto,

and

, the idea of cutting an English-language version came up. Norman Gimbel wrote the English lyrics. João's wife,

, was the only one of the Brazilians who could speak English well and was chosen to sing. Her voice, without trained singer mannerisms, proved a perfect fit for the song. The key the song is played in traditionally has varied depending upon the origin of the recording. While the original Ribeiro version was in the

key of G G major (or the key of G) is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative minor is E minor and its parallel minor is G minor. The G major scale is: Notable compositi ...

, most Brazilian performances use D♭ and most American versions use F.

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the " Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and ...

recorded the song with Jobim in 1967 for their album '' Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim''.

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

recorded it for her two-disc set of Brazilian music '' Ella Abraça Jobim'', released by Pablo Today in 1981. Ethel Ennis and Nat King Cole have also both recorded the song. A version by Gary Criss titled "The Girl From Ipanema / Brazilian Nights" from his album "Rio De Janeiro" reached number 19 in the Canadian RPM dance charts in August 1978. Eliane Elias included the song in her albums '' Eliane Elias Sings Jobim'' (1998) and '' Brazilian Classics'' (2003).

Inspiration

Ipanema is a fashionable neighborhood located in the southern region of the city of

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. The song was inspired by Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (now known as Helô Pinheiro), a seventeen-year-old girl living on Montenegro Street in Ipanema. Daily, she would stroll past the Veloso bar-café, not just to the beach ("each day when she walks to the sea"), but in the everyday course of her life. She would sometimes enter the bar to buy cigarettes for her mother and leave to the sound of wolf whistles. In the winter of 1962, the composers saw the girl pass by the bar. Since the song became popular, she has become a celebrity. In ''Revelação: a verdadeira Garôta de Ipanema'' ("''Revealed: The Real Girl from Ipanema''") Moraes wrote that she was "the paradigm of the young

Carioca Carioca ( or ) is a demonym used to refer to anything related to the City of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. The original meaning of the term is controversial, maybe from Tupi language "''kari' oka''", meaning "white house" as the whitewashed stone ...

: a golden teenage girl, a mixture of flower and mermaid, full of light and grace, the sight of whom is also sad, in that she carries with her, on her route to the sea, the feeling of youth that fades, of the beauty that is not ours alone—it is a gift of life in its beautiful and melancholic constant ebb and flow."

Legacy

The legacy of "The Girl from Ipanema" was acknowledged by multiple aspects of the

2016 Summer Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

and

Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...

held in Rio de Janeiro: the Olympic and Paralympic mascots were respectively named Vinicius and Tom after the song's co-writers by a public vote, while the Olympics'

opening ceremony An opening ceremony, grand opening, or ribbon-cutting ceremony marks the official opening of a newly-constructed location or the start of an event.

featured a segment themed around the song and the architecture of

Oscar Niemeyer Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was ...

. Jobim's grandson Daniel performed the song during the segment, which also featured an appearance by Brazilian supermodel

Gisele Bündchen Gisele Caroline Bündchen (, , born 20 July 1980) is a Brazilian fashion model. Since 2001, she has been one of the highest-paid models in the world. In 2007, Bündchen was the 16th-richest woman in the entertainment industry and earned th ...

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active use ...

reported that the song had been streamed on its service 40,000 times per day in the days following the ceremony (a 1200% increase), while in the U.S., the song reached #5 on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

''s

World Digital Songs The World Digital Song Sales chart (formerly World Digital Songs) is a weekly record chart compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published by ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' magazine. Established in 2010—with the issue dated January 23—as one o ...

chart the following week.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Legal disputes

In 2001, the song's copyright owners (the heirs of their composer fathers) sued Pinheiro for using the title of the song as the name of her boutique (Garota de Ipanema). In their complaint, they stated that her status as The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) did not entitle her to use a name that legally belonged to them. Public support was strongly in favor of Pinheiro. A press release by Jobim and Moraes, the composers, in which they had named Pinheiro as the real Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) was used as evidence that they had intended to bestow this title on her. The court ruled in favor of Pinheiro. In a separate legal dispute,

sued Frito-Lay for

trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may ...

for using the song in a TV advertisement for its baked potato chips. Gilberto argued that:

the result of the huge success of the 1964 recording, and her frequent subsequent performances of "Ipanema," she has become known as The Girl from Ipanema and is identified by the public with the 1964 recording. She claims as a result to have earned trademark rights in the 1964 recording, which she contends the public recognizes as a mark designating her as a singer. She contends, therefore, that Frito-Lay could not lawfully use the 1964 recording in an advertisement for its chips without her permission.
Oliveira v. Frito-Lay Inc.
', 251 F.3d 56 (2nd Cir. 2001).

In ''Oliveira v. Frito-Lay Inc.'' (2001), her claims were rejected by the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

"The Boy from Ipanema"

When sung by female artists the song has often been rendered as "The Boy from Ipanema", such as by Julie London (1964 single),

Peggy Lee Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalis ...

(1964),

and

The Supremes The Supremes were an American girl group and a premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and the most successf ...

(1965),

Shirley Bassey Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey (; born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer. Best known for her career longevity, powerful voice and recording the theme songs to three James Bond films, Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular vocalist ...

(1966) and

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song " Santa ...

(1974). Petula Clark sang it in 1977 on

The Muppet Show ''The Muppet Show'' is a sketch comedy television series created by Jim Henson and featuring the Muppets. The series originated as two pilot episodes produced by Henson for ABC in 1974 and 1975. While neither episode was moved forward as ...

. Crystal Waters recorded her version in 1996 for the various artists Red Hot + Rio compilation and was later included on her 1998 greatest hits set. Diana Krall recorded another version on her 2009 album '' Quiet Nights''. The reason for "The Boy from Ipanema" version is partially caused by an awkward translation occurring when female vocalists sing: "But each time when she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead not at HE." Some singers have corrected this by singing: "But each time when she goes for a swim, she looks straight ahead not at him." A parody of the song, with different lyrics written by

Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...

, is entitled '' The Boy From...''. Another parody is "The Girl With Emphysema" by comedian

Bob Rivers Robert Rivers (born July 7, 1956 in Branford, Connecticut) is a retired American rock and roll radio on-air personality in the Pacific Northwest, as well as a prolific producer and songwriter of parody songs, most famous for his Christmas son ...

. The phrase "Boy from Ipanema" — but nothing from the song — appears in Norwegian recording artist Annie's " Anthonio". Likewise, the phrase "Girl from Ipanema" appears in

The B-52's The B-52's, also styled as The B-52s, are an American new wave band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original lineup consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, keyboards, synth bass), Cindy Wilson (vocals, ...

' 1985 single "

Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland "Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland" is the second single from the album '' Bouncing Off the Satellites'' by American new wave band The B-52's. The single peaked at No. 10 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Dance Club Play, their fourth Top 10 entry on t ...

," again without any musical reference to the original song.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Girl From Ipanema, The 1962 songs 1964 singles 1960s jazz standards Bossa nova jazz standards Songs about Rio de Janeiro (city) Nat King Cole songs Ella Fitzgerald songs Frank Sinatra songs Barbra Streisand songs Grammy Award for Record of the Year Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Songs with lyrics by Norman Gimbel Songs with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim United States National Recording Registry recordings English-language Brazilian songs Portuguese-language songs Songs with lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes Latin Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Jazz compositions in F major Verve Records singles Crystal Waters songs Jazz compositions in D-flat major Macaronic songs