‘The Girl from Ipanema’ – or, in Portuguese, ‘Garota de Ipanema’ – is without doubt the song that turned bossa nova into a household term the world over. It was written by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes one afternoon in 1962, as they sat in the Veloso bar – now renamed ‘Garota de Ipanema’ – on Montenegro Street, where they had watched the young Helô Pinheiro walk past them on her way to Ipanema Beach. The song was first recorded in 1963 by Peri Ribeiro (Odeon) (Machado 1971), and since then over 300 other recordings have appeared on the market, both in Brazil and abroad (Cabral n.d.c, p. 10). When it was first launched in America on the ‘Getz/Gilberto’ album (Verve), interpreted by Astrud and João Gilberto in 1964, ‘The Girl from Ipanema' posed a serious challenge to the Beatles’ hegemony over the charts, rapidly moving to second place. With 4.2 million registered performances, it was only in the last four years that its ratings began to fall, but it is still among the world's most widely aired popular songs (Anon 1994c, pp. 124–5).