"# Moro!" "# Num pais tropical" "# Abencoado por Deus" "# E bonito por natureza... #" "This is the story of a country whose music has seduced the outside world and taken on an importance that goes far beyond entertainment." "You want to learn about Brazilian history without going through the books." "Listen to the music and you understand everything." "Brazilian music is having an enormous impact." "Brazilian music - ah!" "# E bonito por natureza Mas que beleza!" "# Em fevereiro Em fevereiro!" "# Tem carnaval Tem carnaval!" "# Eu tenho um fusca e um violao" "# Sou Flamengo, tenho uma nega Chamada Tereza... #" "In Brazil, music is a national passion." "Wildly varied styles from bossa nova to distinctively Brazilian reggae and hip-hop have projected rival views of how the country should see itself while politicians have used music to try to bring unity to the largest state in South America." "This is a story in which leading musicians are censored and jailed and a one-time rebel, Gilberto Gil, becomes Brazil's first black government minister." "And it starts with the music that dominates and defines this vast, multiracial state - samba." "Samba is the best-known, most enduring style in Brazil." "The samba rhythm provides the backdrop for the Rio Carnival and for sophisticated dance songs that have helped to give Brazil the exotic image it enjoys in the world." "But samba also includes laments about life in the shanty towns - the favelas, and songs on the recurring themes of race and poverty in a society that prides itself on being a racial democracy, but where the most black are often the most poor." "Samba was born on the northeastern coast around the city of Salvador back in the days of slavery." "Salvador in Bahia state was the first capital of Brazil when it was colonised by the Portuguese in the 16th century." "The indigenous tribes along the coast were mostly killed by the Portuguese or the diseases they brought from Europe." "They were replaced by slaves transported from Africa to work in the plantations." "Over the next 300 years, four million Africans were forcibly moved to Brazil." "It was the largest slave population in the world and Salvador was the main slave port." "Salvador is still a predominantly black city." "The samba rhythm developed from percussion styles used in Candomble, an African-influenced religion which was banned in the slave era." "In Candomble ceremonies, drummers call down gods, or "orixas", who are said to act as guides and guardians for the believers." "This is a religion that evolved from deception." "Slaves worshipped African gods and pretended they were praying to the Catholic saints of the Portuguese." "African beliefs and Catholicism began to mix, but the African rhythms used in Candomble didn't change." "PLAYS RHYTHM" "Samba takes its name from the African-Angolan style "semba"" "which in Bahia was transformed by the slaves to a circle dance called "samba de roda" or "samba de chula"." "In 1888, Brazil became the last major country in the world to officially abolish slavery, 66 years after breaking away from Portugal to become an independent state." "Black workers were at last free to leave the plantations." "Many headed south to Rio de Janeiro, now the Brazilian capital." "In Rio, the African rhythms of the former slaves mixed with European musical styles to create the different forms of modern-day samba." "# Amor nao e facil de achar" "# A marca dos meus desenganos ficou, ficou" "# So um amor pode apagar" "# A marca dos meus desenganos ficou, ficou" "# So um amor pode apagar... #" "# O samba trazendo alvorada" "# Meu coracao conquistou... #" "Everybody came from everywhere else in the country to live here, so even if the original beats of samba came from Bahia, from Africa and such and such..." "..Rio, being a more cosmopolitan place, would incorporate all influences and create different styles." "Rio de Janeiro was very different to Bahia." "It was then a rapidly expanding city of some half a million with a large white population boosted by immigrants from Portugal and also Germany, Italy and Spain." "They looked to white Europe and certainly not Africa as the model for their lifestyle and culture." "But then this South American port had once been declared a European capital." "In 1808, the entire Portuguese Court had moved to Rio from Lisbon, fearing for their lives after Napoleon invaded Portugal." "For the next 13 years while the Court remained," "Rio became the capital, not just of Brazil, but of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire." "The courtiers who moved to Rio brought with them Portuguese musical styles like the modinha." "Modinha is so near the heart of Brazilian music." "And it's a song, it's a kind of song that was developed in the Portuguese Court by a mad monk, an intensely erotic priest who wanted to use song to seduce young girls, so he adapted folk forms and court poetry" "to a kind of fusion in which you could express very tender sentiments." "It became so popular in the cities like Salvador and Rio that every night with the young men out serenading, you could hear the sounds everywhere in the street." "In Rio, African rhythms began to mix with European styles." "And it was at the house of a Candomble practitioner, a priestess named Tia Ciata, Auntie Ciata, that the first song widely recognised as carioca samba - samba from Rio - was performed in 1916." "It was credited to a musician named Donga and titled Pelo Telefone" " On The Telephone." "# Ai, ai, ai" "# E deixar magoas pra tras o rapaz" "# Ai, ai, ai" "# Fica triste se es capaz e veras... #" "Tia Ciata's house on Praca Onze was the centre both for samba musicians and those who specialised in an urban instrumental style, the first Brazilian music popular in Europe." "Choro was a mixture of Afro-Brazilian rhythms and European dance styles and sounded like Brazil's answer to New Orleans jazz." "The finest choro exponent, also famed for his samba playing, is the composer and flute player, Pixinguinha." "There's a wonderful saying in Brazil that if you want to write about Brazilian folk music, you'll have to write many volumes, but if you want to sum it up in one word, it's Pixinguinha." "Racial discrimination was now banned in Brazil, but prejudice and belief in white supremacy was still widespread, so there was outrage in the press that black musicians like Pixinguinha should represent Brazil when he and his band, Os Batutas, were invited to give a European tour." "In 1922 when the first great choro group, Os Batutas, which means "the cool guys", went to Paris with Pixinguinha with the flute, it had an enormous effect." "People who talk only about American jazz in Paris don't realise that the Brazilians got there first." "In Europe, Pixinguinha heard American jazz which he began to mix with choro and samba." "He later switched from flute to saxophone and learned two important lessons that would be repeated throughout the story of Brazilian music - the first that Brazilian and Western styles are constantly blending together, and the second that those that are thought to be too Westernised are soon criticised in Brazil." "By the time of his death in 1972, Pixinguinha had become one of the legends of Brazilian music, a player who pioneered Brazil's links with jazz and guaranteed the popularity of choro throughout the years when samba would be transformed by fashion and politics." "Samba and choro both started out as the home-grown musical styles of the black workers and migrants who had moved to Rio." "The songs of the early samba singers dealt with the realities of everyday life in the city." "In the early days, musicians faced not only prejudice, but harassment." "In 1928, the first so-called samba school opened in Rio, a club where musicians and composers could meet, rehearse and plan their activities for the city's annual pre-Lent Carnival, though the authorities banned black and mixed race carnival groups" "from parading through downtown, predominantly white Rio." "SONG IN PORTUGUESE" "Many of the early samba songs romanticised malandros, the hustlers of the black communities and the authorities outlawed musicians and their samba parties." "But all that would suddenly change." "Samba was to be appropriated, transformed and used by the government." "From now on, music would play a new role in Brazilian life." "The man who transformed samba was President Getulio Vargas who seized power with military help in 1930." "Vargas controlled Brazil for 18 years, first as a dictator, and later as a democratically elected President." "He was both an authoritarian and a populist." "He started out as an admirer of the European fascists, Mussolini and Hitler." "He banned strikes, but promoted industry and social welfare and wanted to give a new national identity to his vast country, then a loose confederation of states." "He did so by championing those intellectuals who said Brazil should not be modelled on white Europe, but should celebrate racial mixing and Afro-Brazilian culture." "The President spread the message using the new medium of nationwide radio stations and by promoting samba, now the government-approved symbol of Brazil's racial democracy." "It was a really big cultural revolution going on in Brazil." "A new music, a new way of thinking about Brazilian culture, all these things together and the whole creation of media to broadcast the new ideas." "So Vargas was very lucky to have all these tunes." "The Vargas administration wanted to use samba to unify Brazil, but in return, it was demanded that samba should change." "In 1936, it was announced that samba musicians could now take part in the Carnival parade." "They were even encouraged to do so, but there were strict rules." "Samba schools now had to present a national theme with a patriotic lesson." "Samba, of course, was mixed race music with its roots in both Africa and Europe." "And promoting samba suited the Vargas policy of encouraging Brazilian unity by celebrating ethnic integration." "And yet throughout the 1930s, Vargas continued to develop strong links with European fascist states, including Nazi Germany, where such ideas would have horrified those who believed in Aryan supremacy." "In January 1936, there was a special edition of the radio programme, Hora Do Brasil, broadcast directly from Brazil to Nazi Germany." "It included government-approved songs written by black musicians." "A very important part of the show was the samba music from the samba schools." "I always think about the Nazi Germans listening to that kind of very black, very African Brazilian music." "President Vargas made samba respectable and it was now appropriated by middle-class Brazilians." "Old-style sambas about malandros were still popular in the poor, black areas, but were now censored." "The middle-class favoured a more melodic, sophisticated style - samba cancao, and songs that praised the glory and the beauty of Brazil." "Samba's broad new appeal was helped by exceptional composers like Ary Barroso, the son of a lawyer, whose Aquarela Do Brasil, Watercolour Of Brazil, became almost a national anthem." "Unlike carnival samba, or samba enredo, samba cancao could be sung by individuals, as well as massed bands." "Dorival Caymmi, who was photographed with Vargas, became samba's first celebrated solo singer-songwriter." "He played guitar in a very peculiar way." "He was the first one to be a singer, composer, guitarist like, you know, Bob Dylan." "He was a very good singer." "His voice was beautiful." "His music was absolutely fresh and simple and good." "And his lyrics were wonderful." "He was...the round artist." "He could do everything very well." "It was always about the sea, about Bahia, about the fishermen." "The Vargas flirtation with Nazi Germany ended in 1939 when Brazil signed a "good neighbour agreement" with its big neighbour to the north, the USA." "Links between Brazil and America grew stronger just at the right time for the emergence of samba's first international superstar, Brazil's most successful Hollywood actress - the colourful, highly controversial Carmen Miranda." "Carmen Miranda..." "She herself was Hollywood." "She herself was kitsch." "She was internationally known in a way that brought to our minds both pride and shame." "# I wonder why does everybody look at me" "# And then begin to talk about a Christmas tree" "# I hope that means that everyone is glad to see" "# The lady in the tutti-frutti hat... #" "I think we should all celebrate Carmen Miranda, first because she was one of the major singers in Brazilian music and helped launch some of the greatest composers of the '30s." "Some said she wasn't a true Brazilian because she was born in Portugal, but Carmen Miranda conquered Brazil during the '30s, then moved on to the States." "Her songs came from the finest writers of the day, including Dorival Caymmi and Ary Barroso, but she had little in common with the early samba singers." "Her samba singing, which was not the authentic..." "..near to the slums, black kind of samba, was nonetheless very rich." "Carmen Miranda sang on Broadway, starred in Hollywood films and performed at the White House for Franklin Roosevelt." "But when she returned to Brazil in July 1940, the reaction was not what she had expected." "The first time she came back from the United States and she sang, she was booed." "In many ways, she became a caricature." "People were saying she was Americanised and not authentic." "Miss Miranda...?" "Miss Miranda?" "REPLIES IN PORTUGUESE" "You're talking to Americans and I think it'd be better if you'd speak English." "Oh, I forgot." "Well, fellas, what I'd like to talk to you about is this..." "Then she recorded a song about it and it's a masterpiece, saying, "They say that I came back Americanised."" "It's so...witty and graceful." "People see her like a funny comedian with a funny hat and they don't realise how wonderful she was as a singer and how important she was to the development of a certain style of Brazilian music which we call "samba sincopado", the syncopated samba." "She was great at that, the best." "Carmen Miranda came to symbolise Brazil for the outside world, though she had been criticised at home for becoming too Westernised." "Her light-hearted songs had little to do with the everyday struggles of many ordinary Brazilians." "They found a new hero in the northern countryside, inland from Recife." "# O meu cabelo ja comeca pratiando" "# Mas a sanfona ainda nao desafinou... #" "Luiz Gonzaga was the exponent of a new style, forro, that swept across Brazil in the 1940s from the remote northeast where his songs are still played by musicians who knew him." "FORRO DANCE RHYTHM" "# Modestia a parte e que eu nao desafino" "# Desde o tempo de menino" "# Em Exu no meu sertao" "# Cantava solto que nem cigarra vadia" "# E e por isso que hoje em dia" "# Ainda sou o rei do baiao" "# Cantava solto que nem cigarra vadia" "# E e por isso que hoje em dia" "# Ainda sou o rei do baiao... #" "# Onde reinou o baiao" "# Se eu mereci minha coroa de rei" "# Esta sempre eu honrei" "# Foi a minha obrigacao... #" "# Sanfona velha do foie furado" "# So faz fum, so faz fum" "# Mesmo assim o cavalheiro faz um refungado" "# E o coracao da morena faz tum, tum" "# O sanfoneiro animado puxa o foie Depois de tomar um gole de rum" "# E haja fum, haja fum, forro com esse foie e forro numero um... #" "You can compare Luiz Gonzaga with Bob Marley and reggae because he really did the melting of the style." "It became very well known because he recorded it, they played it on the radio in the '40s, '50s, so he came up with a new rhythm." "It was kind of the same as Bob Marley did with reggae in Jamaica." "Luiz Gonzaga was the son of a farmworker whose life was transformed after he had appeared on a radio show in Rio." "It was hosted by Ary Barroso, but Gonzaga proved that Barroso's nationalistic samba could be matched by dance music from the north." "Forro music didn't become a rival to samba, but let's say something as big as samba inside Brazil, but not outside Brazil." "Of course, samba had Carmen Miranda, for example, as something that promoted samba, even in Hollywood movies." "But forro is as much from the people of Brazil, from the real people of Brazil, as samba." "This was a new era of migration as workers from the poor farmlands of the northeast moved south to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to look for work." "Luiz Gonzaga wrote dance songs and sang about the lives of migrants." "After Luiz Gonzaga died in 1989, a statue was erected just outside Recife, the capital of his home state, Pernambuco." "It marks the start of the Luiz Gonzaga Highway." "Gonzaga had reminded Brazil's city dwellers of the depth of the music in the countryside and shown that music was as important for the outlying regions as it was for Rio as a way of expressing their views and problems." "And with forro, there had been no attempt by the government to control the music." "Gonzaga led the way for Jackson do Pandeiro, an exponent of another Afro-Brazilian rhythm - coco, and best-known for Chiclete Com Banana, Bubblegum And Bananas, that poked fun at the American lack of understanding of Brazilian music." "Getulio Vargas, the President who had strengthened Brazil's links with America, while championing samba as a way of promoting a new national identity, died while still in office in 1954." "He shot himself in the heart after demands for his resignation following a corruption scandal in his government." "Less than a year later, another funeral, for Carmen Miranda who died in Hollywood aged just 46." "Her body was flown to Rio where a million people followed her coffin." "The unlikely duo of Carmen Miranda and President Vargas had not always found favour within Brazil for their musical ideas, but between them had transformed the international image of Brazil and the Rio music scene by promoting samba and Carnival." "During the final years of Vargas' rule, the Carnival celebrations became ever more flamboyant and attracted tourists as well as supporters of rival samba schools to the parades judged not just on the music and costumes, but on the themes and ideas they portray." "The Rio Carnival has become increasingly commercialised, but remains a focus for major composers and singers." "Like the flamboyant Elza Soares, who became associated with Mocidade, a samba school in the neighbourhood where she grew up which she praises in one of her best known songs." "# Salve a Mocidade Salve a Mocidade" "# Salve a Mocidade Salve a Mocidade... #" "Samba schools are now an important part of Rio's musical life, not just as music clubs that compete at Carnival time, but as recreation centres with strong links to the local community." "Each school still inspires fervent support." "Everybody loves the show." "It's a wonderful parade." "Great composers have passed through the great samba schools." "Every Brazilian has a favourite samba school like a football team." "We all have our favourites." "President Vargas gave Rio the Carnival for which the city became world-famous, but less than two years after his death, a new form of samba emerged that reflected a new political era in Brazil, would bring Rio even more international exposure" "and prove to be Brazil's most successful musical export." "This was bossa nova." "# Se voce insiste em classificar... #" "This was cool, futuristic, new music for a confident, new era." "President Juscelino Kubitschek set out to transform Brazil with an ambitious programme of public works, including the construction of a new capital, Brasilia, and the promise of 50 years' development in five." "Kubitschek would later be accused of causing rampant inflation, but for many Brazilians, this seemed like a golden age." "He was a very open-minded man." "Before that, we had tremendous dictatorship by Vargas who was a complete idiot." "When Juscelino came to Brazil's government, everything expanded." "It was a time when Brazil seemed to succeed at everything." "A country obsessed with football won the World Cup for the first time in 1958, partly thanks to a young player called Pele." "Bossa nova, "new way", reflected this new optimism and appealed to Brazil's growing urban middle class." "It was influenced by classical music, jazz and samba cancao." "SINGS SAMBA RHYTHM" "SINGS BOSSA NOVA RHYTHM" "I would say bossa nova is a kind of soft samba, maybe played a bit slower just with the guitars, simpler..." "Very light singing, soft singing, and soft guitars doing the rhythm." "Not a lot of drums like the big samba schools." "Maybe just a few percussions or just brushes..." "# Deslizando na cancao" "# Tudo isso e paz tudo isso traz" "# Uma calma de verao e entao" "# O barquinho vai... #" "I call the bossa nova the discreet charm of bourgeoisie, the refinement of the melody, of the lyric, of the interpretation, of the orchestration." "It came from the middle class for the middle class." "Bossa nova was dominated by three key figures, starting with the singer and guitarist from Bahia, Joao Gilberto." "# So nao podera falar assim do meu amor" "# Esto e o maior que voce pode encontrar... #" "When I first heard Joao Gilberto, it was like enlightenment for me." "You know, it was like an incredible revelation of everything, of aesthetic criteria..." "..and deep emotions." "And most of all...hope in Brazil." "I think my father changed Brazilian music, if I can say that." "I think he changed Brazilian music also in the map." "It's really about re-inventing." "And I see sometimes my father seeking for different chords, from classics that he has been playing for the last 40 years, and I just can't believe it, his obsession." "It's a true story." "He used to play... to...to study his guitar and he would study the part of the thumb like this." "He would go like that." "The thing is, there was a cat watching that." "And the poor cat was just..." "And he would look at the cat and play "ting...ting...ting" for hours." "You know, just to exercise his thumb." "And the cat couldn't resist." "It jumped out from the eighth floor down there." "The cat killed himself." "# This is just a little samba" "# Built upon a single note" "# Other notes are bound to follow" "# But the root is still that note" "# Now this new one is the consequence" "# Of the one we've just been through" "# As I'm bound to be the unavoidable consequence of you... #" "If Joao Gilberto was the greatest bossa performer, the greatest bossa composer was Antonio Carlos Jobim, better known simply as Tom Jobim, who wrote the melodies for many of Gilberto's hits and was himself an impressive singer and pianist." "I think for me he was the most important Brazilian songwriter because I think that Jobim, he has everything." "He has..." "He has..." "Brazil in itself." "I mean, he has the mountains, he has the forest, he has the sun." "# E pau, e pedra, e o fim do caminho" "# E um resto de toco, e um pouco sozinho" "# E um caco de vidro, e a vida, e o sol" "# E a noite, e a morte, e um laco, e o anzol" "# Sao as aguas de marco fechando o verao" "# E a promessa de vida no teu coracao" "# E o pe, e o chao... #" "Tom Jobim wrote many of his songs here in the countryside outside Rio." "Jobim lived and worked in the house that his son and grandson are now restoring." "He studied a lot Chopin, Debussy, Brahms also." "He liked to wake up very early." "The piano was in the back room and in the morning I would listen to him playing Brahms or Chopin or Debussy." "Always studying early." "Then he would write his songs later." "He used to listen a lot to Sinatra and he used to sing in my mother's ear, dancing and all this stuff." "# Sao as aguas de marco fechando o verao" "# E a promessa de vida no teu coraco... #" "Whenever I was with Tom Jobim, he was always mentioning classical composers, even when we were playing some bossa nova songs, some songs of his." "Then he stopped suddenly in one special chord and he would say, "Here come the Russians."" "And then he would mention Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky." "SINGS BOSSA NOVA RHYTHM" "There was a third member of the team that dominated bossa nova - the poet Vinicius de Moraes who wrote lyrics for the melodies by Tom Jobim and other composers." "# Nao, eu so vou se for pra ver uma estrela aparacer" "# Na manha de um amor... #" "He too was a singer and worked, among others, with the guitarist, Baden Powell." "He was the best lyricist." "He never made a mistake with a song of mine." "And he would come later with the perfect lyric for the song." "# ..uma estrela aparacer Na manha de um amor... #" "He was very successful with women and he was not exactly a good-looking man." "He was fat, short, bald." "But women, I've seen myself..." "He was just a killer." "Just off Rio's Copacabana Beach, there's an alleyway that back in the early '60s was the musical hub of Brazil." "It was in the bars here that the bossa set got together to play and collaborated with local jazz enthusiasts like Sergio Mendes." "Rio was wonderful." "There was The Bottles Bar where I started playing." "There was a trio and everybody used to come there every night and there was a club on the end of the street called The Little Club." "And we did jam sessions there and every jazz musician that would come to Rio would stop by." "And, you know, it was just wonderful times, the early '60s in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro." "Jazz had been one of the influences on bossa and now jazz and bossa began to mix, a fusion helped by the US State Department when it sponsored jazz musicians like Charlie Byrd and Herbie Mann to visit Brazil where they would end up playing in Bottles' Alley." "I think the reason that jazz musicians like bossa nova is because every voice follows a path and it makes sense, not only the melody, but the harmonies also, singing the song also." "It's because it came from classical music." "The way to spread the voice is around the chromatics." "When Charlie Byrd returned home to the States, he enthused about bossa to his friend, the saxophonist, Stan Getz." "And in April 1962, the two of them released Jazz Samba, reworking Joao Gilberto and Jobim songs like Desafinado." "Remarkably for a jazz album, it became a best-seller and stayed in the American charts for a quite astonishing 70 weeks." "Bossa nova suddenly became a new American craze." "'In the record shops, racks full of bossa nova, 'authentic Brazilian style and translated into American by American bands." "'Bossa nova at the White House." "'On stage in the East Room, Paul Winter and his sextet." "'They came back from a State Department tour of South America 'and Jacqueline Kennedy gave it her cool blessing.'" "In November 1962, Brazil's bossa hierarchy, including Gilberto, Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Carlos Lyra, were invited to New York's Carnegie Hall for a concert in which they performed alongside Getz and Byrd." "The result is remembered as something of a historic mess." "It was terrible." "The guy who did the concert..." "They don't like me to tell the story, but it was like this." "The guy didn't care about playing a concert for New York people." "He just wanted to do a recording session on a stage, so he spread microphones all over the stage and called everybody from Brazil to do the concert." "And everybody from New York, whoever wanted to play, would come up and play." "BOSSA NOVA JAZZ MUSIC" "I said, "Let's go, let's get you, me, Joao Gilberto, all the people that came here to do something serious," ""and let's go back home."" "I'll never forget, Jobim said, "Carlos, did you sign that paper?" I said, "Yes, I did."" ""In here we cannot do this like in Brazil." "In here they have electric chair!"" "Nobody was gonna go home." "I said, "OK, let's stay and do what we can."" "I don't know." "In Brazil they said it was a big mess." "But I think it was important there." "And the most important thing is that many of the musicians who went there to play in the concert, they stayed there and then they began to work around, like Oscar Castro Neves, Sergio Mendes, my father, Joao Gilberto." "They stayed." "The bossa fraternity began to split with musicians like Jobim now remaining in America, but complaining at the way music had changed." "We had there the same phenomena that I think you have here now." "We had the bossa nova ice box, bossa nova wash...washing machines, bossa nova lawyers." "LAUGHTER" "And many things." "Now I heard here in the radio bossa nova hair comb, bossa nova shoes!" "This is not very good for the music." "Carlos Lyra was also to leave Brazil for Mexico with other complaints about the new bossa." "Some people preferred the bossa with lots of jazz." "I thought that there shouldn't be so much jazz." "It was important, the jazz influence in bossa nova, but it shouldn't be too much." "We should keep the jazz like a spice in the food." "Not too much, otherwise it's gonna burn you." "So I wrote a song, Jazz Influence, that talks about that." "# Quase que morreu" "# E acaba morrendo, esta quase morrendo, nao percebeu... #" "By early 1964, the bossa nova boom in Brazil was coming to an end." "It had moved to America where the best known bossa song of all time was about to become a massive hit." "# Olha que coisa mais linda Mais cheia de graca" "# E ela menina, que vem e que passa" "# Num doce balanco, a caminho do mar... #" "Garota De Ipanema, Girl From Ipanema, had been written by Jobim and Vinicius in 1962, as they sat in this bar off Copacabana, watching the girls walk by." "They wrote that song just because they saw the same girl passing by the bar, going towards the beach every day." "They were like, "Oh, my God, check it out, check the way she walks," ""check how charming she is when she crosses the road..."" "And I don't know if today these people still can have that naive or romantic way of approaching words and songs in a way that they used to do 40, 50 years back." "# Tall and tan and young and lovely" "# The girl from Ipanema goes walking" "# And when she passes, each one she passes goes "ah"... #" "Girl From Ipanema became a massive hit in the States in July 1964 when it was sung in English by Joao Gilberto's then wife, Astrud." "# That when she passes, each one she passes goes "ah"..." "# Oh, but I watch her so sadly" "# How can I tell her I love her...?" "#" "But by then, the idyllic image of an easy-going, romantic Brazil had been shattered by a military coup." "The soldiers would remain in power for the next 21 years." "In a country where music had come to represent the national identity, samba and bossa would be transformed and a new generation of musicians would fight against the harassment and censorship that was to come."