The Girl from Ipanema and bossa nova

“Garota de Ipanema” (The Girl from Ipanema) is the song that carried the name of Ipanema Beach around the world.

The song

It was composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim with lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes in 1962, according to Wikipedia. The first commercial recording was by Pery Ribeiro, the same year. The 1964 version by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz, on the album Getz/Gilberto, became an international hit and reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965, entered the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001 and the US National Recording Registry in 2004. It is cited as one of the most played and most covered songs in history, with versions by Frank Sinatra, Amy Winehouse, Madonna and Tim Maia, among many others.

At the opening of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, it was played by Daniel Jobim, Tom’s grandson, while Gisele Bündchen walked across the stadium.

The bar

One block from the beach, on Rua Vinicius de Moraes, stands the bar formerly called Veloso, where Tom and Vinicius watched the girl who inspired the song walk by. Today the bar bears the song’s name.

For bossa nova fans in Ipanema

• The beach itself and the sunset at Arpoador.
• The statue of Tom Jobim at the entrance to Arpoador, unveiled in 2014.
• A stroll through the streets of Ipanema, home to many of the names of bossa nova.