I’m trying to go in chronological order here but this was just too good to wait! Last night on our Diageo Reserve World Class Bar Safari our guide took us past the bar where the Girl from Ipanema song was written, and yes it’s about a real girl! She’s about 60 years old now and still runs a bikini shop near the bar… and then he sang the song for us 🙂 how can you not love that?! PS. Would you believe she has an even hotter daughter now? Boys, you’re welcome. Rio, you’re amazing.

Girl from Ipanema

The song was composed in 1962 by Antonio Carlos Jobim, with lyrics in Portuguese by Vinícius de Moraes. (Norman Gimbel wrote the English lyrics.) It was first recorded in 1962 by Pery Ribeiro. A 1964 recording became an American hit. That recording, sung by Astrud Gilberto in English and in Portuguese by João Gilberto, with João Gilberto on guitar, Stan Getz on saxophone, and the composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim, on piano, appeared on the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, which introduced Bossa Nova to the world.

Legend has it that 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…”

That’s an original picture of the Girl from Ipanema, Helo Pinheiro, at the beach in the 60s.

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!

Thank you Wikipedia! And belavista-rio.com 🙂