This Just In ...

Goodnight everyone, and have a Helo Pinheiro weekend!

Posted by Kevin Fischer on July 13, 2012

Nostalgia

“You know you have a hit when it gets recorded by cover artists time and again, when it shoots to the top of the charts and stays there for ages and when you walk into an elevator in cities around the world and the melody you hear is from that song.”
From www.songplaces.com

It's Friday night. Time to unwind with our regular Friday night feature on This Just In.

The weekend has finally arrived.

The sun has set.





The evening sky has erupted. 

Let's put controversy and provocative blogs aside for the rest of this work week and smooth our way into Saturday and Sunday.

Tonight, one of the most popular songs ever.

First, there were the Beatles and “Yesterday,” the most recorded song ever.

Number two on the list turned 50 this summer.

No, it’s not “White Christmas.”

Think warmer.

Much warmer.

The song was written in 1962.

Stan Getz on the sax.

Astrud Gilberto on the vocal, singing the famous lyrics written by Vinicius de Moraes. Antonio Carlos Jobim composed the music.

Here’s a scene from the 1964 movie, “Get Yourself a College Girl.”

 

The song won the Grammy for "Record of the Year" in 1965. When other female vocalists did their rendition, they'd change the tune to "The Boy from Ipanema."

Here's a more contemporary version from Elvis Costello's wife.


 

BTW, she'll be in Milwaukee Monday night. Here's a nice deal.

So, was there really a “Girl from Ipanema?”

The website www.performingsongwriter.com reports:

“Summer 1962. Rio de Janeiro. At the Veloso Bar, a block from the beach at Ipanema, two friends—the composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and the poet Vinícius de Moraes—are drinking Brahma beer and musing about their latest song collaboration.

The duo favor the place for the good brew and the even better girl-watching opportunities. Though both are married men, they’re not above a little ogling. Especially when it comes to a neighborhood girl nicknamed Helô. Eighteen-year-old Heloisa Eneida Menezes Pais Pinto is a Carioca—a native of Rio. She’s tall and tan, with emerald green eyes and long, dark wavy hair. They’ve seen her passing by, as she’s heading to the beach or coming home from school. She has a way of walking that de Moraes calls ‘sheer poetry.’

Legend has it that Jobim and de Moraes were so inspired by this shapely coed, they wrote a song for her right on the bar napkins. It’s a good story, but it’s not quite true.”

From a recent Wall Street Journal article:

"’It's the oldest story in the world,’ says Norman Gimbel, who wrote the English lyrics. ‘The beautiful girl goes by, and men pop out of manholes and fall out of trees and are whistling and going nuts, and she just keeps going by. That's universal.’

So reasoned composer Antônio Carlos Jobim and poet Vinícius de Moraes five decades ago. Stalled on a number for a musical called ‘Blimp,’ they sought inspiration at the Veloso, a seaside cafe in the Ipanema neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. There they remembered a local teenager, the 5-foot-8-inch, dark-haired, green-eyed Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, whom they often saw walking to the beach or entering the bar to buy cigarettes for her mother. And so they penned a paean to a vision.”

Tall and tan and young and lovely. That's her, Helô Pinheiro, the woman who inspired the classic song. She would become an actress and pose twice for Playboy.

Even before "The Girl from Ipanema," bossa nova was starting to catch on, helped by another Antonio Carlos Jobim composition, performed quite well here by Kenny G.




 


Love is like a never-ending melody
Poets have compared it to a symphony
A symphony conducted by the lighting of the moon
But our song of love is slightly out of tune

Once your kisses raised me to a fever pitch
Now the orchestration doesn't seem so rich
Seems to me you've changed the tune we used to sing
Like the bossa nova, love should swing

We used to harmonize, two souls in perfect time
Now the song is different and the words don't even rhyme
Cause you forgot the melody our hearts would always croon
So what's good's a heart that's slightly out of tune

Tune your heart to mine the way it used to be
Join with me in harmony and sing a song of loving
We've got to get in tune again before too long

There'll be no desafinado
When your heart belongs to me completely
Then you won't be slightly out of tune
You'll sing along with me







That’s it for this week. We do this every Friday night. Try us again one week from tonight.

Goodnight.

Sleep well.

Have a super weekend.

We close with two late, great legends.

 

The Girl in recent years...





ENCORE!

What's that you say?

ENCORE!

You want more?

ENCORE!

You got it!