Eb major · Camelot 5B · 141 BPM
Desafinado
by Stan Getz
- 141
- BPM
- Eb major
- Key
- 5B
- Camelot
- 50
- Danceability
- 53
- Acousticness
Guitarist Charlie Byrd joined Stan Getz for the recording that turned "Desafinado" into a hit in the United States. The song itself had been written in 1959 by Antônio Carlos Jobim, with Portuguese lyrics by Newton Mendonça, and its title translates from the Portuguese as "Out of Tune" or "Off Key". Jobim and Mendonça intended it as a reply to critics who said bossa nova was made for singers who could not sing.
The Getz and Byrd version appeared on the album Jazz Samba and became a major hit in 1962. It reached number 15 on Billboard's pop chart and number 4 on the easy-listening chart, and it climbed to number 11 in the UK. In Canada, where it was co-charted with Pat Thomas's Grammy-nominated version, it reached number 14.
English-language adaptations of the song followed more than one path. Jon Hendricks, working with The Richmond Organisation under the pseudonym Jessie Cavanaugh, wrote lyrics that used consonance to recast the idea as a love song about lovers who had fallen slightly out of tune. Ella Fitzgerald recorded those lyrics on a 1962 single that charted at number 38, and Perry Como sang them on his 1963 album The Songs I Love. A separate English version by Gene Lees, closer to Mendonça's original though not a direct translation, also appears on some recordings.
Desafinado runs at 141 BPM, the tempo of dubstep and trap counted in half time, and hardstyle. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.7 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 426 ms. It is in Eb major, Camelot 5B, which shares its notes with C minor and mixes cleanly with Ab major and Bb major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.