By JAMES D. WATTS JR. Scene Writer on Jul 3, 2012, at 12:06 PM Updated on 7/03 at 12:06 PM
ARTS
This has not, by any standard, been a good week for far too many people.
We've been horrifically reminded how fragile ...
Celebrity Attractions announced that Disney Theatricals will donate a portion of this week's ticket sales to the Tulsa run ...
Tulsa native Tracy Letts won the Outstanding Actor in a Play at the 58th annual Drama Desk Awards, presented Sunday night ...
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A lot of pop songs are about summer and all its various experiences, but nothing has so perfectly captured the feel of summer -- that lulling, languid, relaxed feeling -- as well as the stray dreams and their answering ironic realities as "The Girl from Ipanema."
Composed in 1962 by Antônio Carlos Jobim to lyrics by poet Vinícius de Moraes, the song was inspired by the sight of a young women the two men happened to see as they sat at a beach side cafe in Ipanema, a neighborhood of Rio de Janiero.
It was a popular in Brazil, but it wasn't until an English version was released in 1965 -- with Astrud Gilberto's soft, hesitant vocals against Joao Gilberto's guitar and Stan Getz's saxophone -- that the song became an international phenomenon, introducing Brazil's bossa nova to the music world at large.
It's now the second most recorded song in pop music history -- only the Beatles' "Yesterday" has been recorded more often.
And it remains a perfect -- maybe the perfect -- summer song, because it does what it does so well. The gentle loping rhythm immediately soothes so that you feel yourself starting to relax before the first bar of the music is played. And the vivid and precise words conjure up an idea, an image, of unattainable beauty -- like a perfect moment on a perfect, lazy summer day, that can only be appreciated in an instant, yet remembered for a lifetime.
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