Travel Tips

I have been listening to Jobim's "The Girl from Ipanema" for such a long time now. My dad has an incredible collection of vinyl records of bossa nova and jazz tunes.

I do recall the the first ever record my dad would trust me with his precious record player (one of the very few luxuries we have when I was growing up) was this song. I fell in love. I want to be The Girl .... somehow I think most girls growing up want to be her.

IN PORTUGESE ....

Olha que coisa mais linda mais cheia de graça
É ela menina que vem e que passa
nun doce balanço, caminho do mar...

Moça do corpo dourado, do sol de Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que un poema
é a coisa mais linda
que eu já vi passar...

Ah! Porque estou tão sozinho
Ah! Porque tudo é tão triste
Ah! A beleza que existe

A beleza que não é só minha
que também passa sozinha

Ah! Se ela soubesse
que quando ela passa
o mundo sorrindo
se enche de graça
e fica mais lindo
por causa do amor
por causa do amor
por causa do amor

**Original lyrics in Portuguese by Vinicius de Moraes**

IN ENGLISH

Tall and tan and young and lovely
the girl from Ipanema goes walking
and when she passes
each one she passes
goes "Ahhh!"

When she walks she's like a samba
that swings so cool and sways so gently
that when she passes
each one she passes
goes "Ahhh!"

Oh, but he watches so sadly
How can he tell her he loves her?
Yes, he would give his heart gladly.

But each day when she walks to the sea
she looks straight ahead
not at he.

Tall and tan and young and lovely
the girl from Ipanema goes walking
and when she passes
he smiles
but she doesn't see.
She just doesn't see.
No, she doesn't see....

*The legend*

In 1962, on her way home from school Héloisa Pinheiro regularly passed the Bar Veloso on Rua Montenegro in Rio de Janeiro's fashionable Ipanema district. The composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and poet Vinícius de Moraes, who were collaborating on a musical comedy, were hanging out in the bar. Every afternoon they watched her pass by, and were inspired to write "Garota de Ipanema". Later Jobim said, "She had long, golden hair, these bright green eyes that shone at you and a fantastic figure: let's just say that she had everything in the right place...."

[Harold Emert, Insight Guide to Rio de Janeiro pp. 138-139]

Now the street has been renamed "Rua Vinícius de Moraes" and the bar, "A Garota de Ipanema". But heartbreakingly beautiful girls still walk by every day. . . .

*The truth*

From Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, by Ruy Castro (Pg. 239-240.
) It has already been explained, but people find it hard to accept the truth: Jobim and Vinícius did not write "The Girl from Ipanema" in the Veloso bar (today called Garota da Ipanema), which was on the street that used to be known as Rua Montenegro and is now Rua Vinícius de Moraes, at the intersection with Rua Prudente de Moraes (no relation). It was never the duo's style to write music sitting at a table in some bar, although they had probably spent the best hours of their lives in them. Jobim composed the melody meticulously on the piano at his new home in Rua Barro da Torre, and it was originally intended for a musical comedy entitled Blimp, which Vinícius already had worked out in his head but had not yet committed to paper.

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. To begin with, it wasn't originally called "Garota da Ipanema," but "Menina que passa" (The Girl Who Passes By"), and the entire first verse was different.

As for the famous girl, Jobim and Vinícius did in fact see 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 Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, better known as Helô, who was eighteen years of age, five feet, eight inches tall, 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.

**** all information taken from http://sprezzatura.editthispage.com/garota ****

Eis aqui este sambinha
Feito numa nota s?
Outras notas v?o entrar
Mas a base ? uma s?
Esta outra ? conseq??ncia
Do que acabo de dizer
Como eu sou a conseq??ncia
Inevit?vel de voc?
Quanta gente existe por a?
Que fala tanto e n?o diz nada
Ou quase nada
E voltei pra minha nota
Como eu volto pra voc?
Vou contar com minha nota
Como eu gosto de voc?
E quem quer todas as notas
Re mi f? sol l? si d?
Fica sempre sem nenhuma
Fique numa nota s?

Sung in Portugese, One Note Samba is one of my favourite Jobim compositions. Makes my feet shuffle and puts a smile on my face :-)

Picture taken from http://www.nortemag.com/tom/albumretr/e.fotosframe.html