The Girl from Ipanema

Antônio Carlos Jobim wrote the music in 1962 for a musical comedy then in progress by Vinicius de Moraes, who wrote the Portuguese lyrics. Norman Gimbel later wrote the English words. Pery Ribeiro made the first commercial recording in 1962. The song was inspired by Heloísa Pinheiro, a 17-year-old who walked past the Veloso bar-café in Ipanema.

At the Getz/Gilberto session the idea of an English version came up, and Astrud Gilberto, the only one of the Brazilians who spoke English well, was chosen to sing. She was paid $120. The shortened single reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent two weeks at number one on the Easy Listening chart in 1964. It reached 29 in Britain.

Afterlife

It was among 50 recordings added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2004. Getz and Astrud Gilberto perform it as themselves in the 1964 film Get Yourself a College Girl. At the 1966 Berlin Jazz Festival she ended a set of seven songs she had recorded with Getz with it. Women singers have often turned it into The Boy from Ipanema. At the 2016 Rio Olympics the mascots were named Vinicius and Tom after its writers, and Jobim's grandson Daniel Jobim performed it in the opening ceremony.