44. Getz Gilberto (1964)



Ah yes. The Girl From Ipanema. Where is Ipanema? Is it a real place or…

Hang on I’ll look it up… It’s real. It’s in Brazil.

Well, there you are. Nice place is it?

According to this, the beach has a problem: “faecal coliform bacteria sometimes spike at 16 times the Brazilian government’s “satisfactory” level.”

Really? Well, that small piece of compelling intelligence was never reported in the lyrics of the song to the best of my knowledge. Considerable attention is paid to the girl but scant mention of the high levels of faecal matter she’s been paddling in.

It would have made for a very different song.

Well quite.

There’s no doubt you’ve been present for the creation of some iconic music.

True. And it’s a source of much pride. When I hear someone playing Sgt Peppers or some other great album I often can’t resist the temptation to mention that I was in the room while it was being made. I do enjoy the feeling of instant awe it generates.

And The Girl From Ipanema doesn’t produce the same reaction?

Not at all. When I hear said tune, which is usually in an elevator it has to be pointed out, I’ll mention that I was present during its recording and anyone in earshot usually asks me why I didn’t take steps to prevent it. I explain to them that despite being armed with a broom, which could have been called on as a serviceable weapon, it wasn’t my job to intervene and forcibly prevent music from being created. And even if one had the authority to act as a sort of taste police, one had no way of knowing that the harmless pop ditty they were recording that day was going to become an appallingly abused piece of elevator muzak. If I may be so vulgar as to utilise an analogy we’ve previously discussed, at the time I thought the song had a satisfactory level of faecal matter. If I’d known that future reproductions would have had sixteen times the acceptable limit then I might have done something.

You would have done us all a favour.

Obviously, the benefit of hindsight is a powerful thing and I’m sure there is much that I would have done differently if given the opportunity to act again while knowing what I know now. Preventing the girl in question from ever gracing the faecal-drenched beaches of Ipanema with her presence would definitely be high on my to-do list should HG Wells ever present me with a device that permitted one to travel in time.

What else would you have done?

I think I might have given Nick Drake a warm embrace. I think he deserved one.

That’s very sweet.

That’s slightly patronising but I’ll take it as a compliment.

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