They wrote that song just because they saw the same girl passing by the bar, going towards the beach every day. And 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.

 

Girl from Ipanema would become a massive hit in the States in July 1964 when it was sung in English by Joao Gilberto’s then wife, Astrud. 

 

But by then, the idyllic image of an easygoing, romantic Brazil had been shuttered by a military coup. The soldiers would remain in power for the next 21 years. And 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.