País Tropical

País Tropical is a list of reasons to be glad to live in Brazil: the heat, the beach, Flamengo, a guitar, a girl called Tereza. Wilson Simonal recorded it first, on 22 July 1969, with his band Som Três; he and César Camargo Mariano cut some verses and added a coda quoting the Flamengo anthem, which led to a lawsuit. Simonal's version topped the IBOPE chart and ended 1969 as the most played song in Brazil. Gal Costa also released it that December, and Ben's own version, at a relaxed four minutes, appeared on his November 1969 album.

Its patriotism had an awkward context. Brazil was under military rule, and the song's cheerful pride fitted the regime's propaganda; that association later fed the damaging rumor that Simonal was an informer, though it never attached to Ben. The comic singer Juca Chaves parodied it as Paris Tropical, and Ben answered with a song called Resposta, which Simonal recorded.

Afterlife

It is one of the most covered songs in Brazilian music, by Sérgio Mendes, Milton Banana, Daniela Mercury, Ivete Sangalo, Shakira and many more, and in Hebrew by Yehudit Ravitz. Ben re-recorded it for Tropical in 1977, and on stage it usually runs into the instrumental Spiro Giro. On 5 August 2016 he sang it at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics in the Maracanã, with more than a thousand baile charme dancers from Madureira, and finished leading the stadium a cappella.