Ab major · Camelot 4B · 129 BPM
The Girl From Ipanema
by Stan Getz
- 129
- BPM
- Ab major
- Key
- 4B
- Camelot
- 66
- Danceability
- 89
- Acousticness
In March 1963, Stan Getz was in a New York City recording studio with João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim, cutting the tracks that would become the album Getz/Gilberto. During that session, the idea came up of making an English-language version of "The Girl from Ipanema," and Norman Gimbel was brought in to write the new lyrics. João's wife, Astrud Gilberto, was the only Brazilian present who spoke English well, so she was chosen to sing. Her untrained voice proved a perfect fit, yet she was never credited and received no royalties, earning just $120 for the performance.
The song itself had been born in 1962, with music by Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes, written for a musical comedy called Dirigível. Jobim composed the melody on his piano in his new house on Rua Barão da Torre in Ipanema, while Moraes wrote the words in Petrópolis. The inspiration was Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, a 17-year-old who walked past the Veloso bar-café each day on her way to the sea, sometimes stopping in to buy cigarettes for her mother. The composers saw her pass by in the winter of 1962.
The shortened single version, released in March 1964 on Verve Records, became a worldwide hit. It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100, spent two weeks at number one on the Easy Listening chart, and peaked at number 29 in the UK. It won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965.
The Girl From Ipanema runs at 129 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.86 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 465 ms. It is in Ab major, Camelot 4B, which shares its notes with F minor and mixes cleanly with Db major and Eb major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.