Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking and
When she passes, each one she passes goes “ahhh.”
In the 1960s, Brazil gave the world the bossa nova, a musical style based on the samba but about 10 times cooler and mellower, if that’s possible. And, amazing as it sounds, a girl from Ipanema really did inspire Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese poet Vinicius de Moraes when they spotted her on Rio de Janeiro’s famous beach. They composed the song in 1962 and it became a hit in 1964 when it was recorded by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz.
That girl, who is now a 71-year-old grandmother, returned to the beach bearing the Olympic torch Friday morning.
“I feel so happy about this, so proud,” Helô Pinheiro said (via CNN). “It’s very exciting.”
As for the moment when she was discovered, she said, “I think God put me in the right place at the right time.”
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The song has had incredible legs over the years, becoming one of the most often covered in recording history.
“It’s the oldest story in the world,” Norman Gimbel, who wrote the English lyrics, told the Wall Street Journal when the song turned 50. “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.”
On Friday night, supermodel Gisele Bundchen embodies the Girl from Ipanema during the Opening Ceremonies of the Rio Olympics in Maracana Stadium. Somehow, Pinheiro was slighted by Rio organizers.
“She’s so beautiful and young,” Pinheiro said of Bundchen. “I would have loved to have seen her playing me in the stadium, but I wasn’t invited.”
Want more details from the Opening Ceremony? Get live updates from Rio here.
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