Tall and Tan and Young and Lovely….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfRgu5wTVsM

I came to a conclusion that when I listen to music I think about an experience or place that I can relate to with the song I am listening too. Music, in a sense, triggers our memory that allows us to relate the sounds to a destination. For me anyway, different songs create images in my memory that are triggered by different emotions or experiences and often times I relate my feelings to a place. Places can be spaces of comfort, discomfort, anxiety, happiness, fear or perhaps other emotions. Our relation to a song could be directed from where or when we first encountered the song or the construction of the piece, perhaps the lyrics present some kind of meaning for us when we listen to the song. For me, music most often reminds me of a moment in time that I have experienced something and I like to picture myself in the place that I had the experience. It is easier to understand something when you can put it in perspective, including music.

I was reading this article from the Toronto Star called “The Girl from Ipanema – still tall, tan, lovely” which describes where the writer and poet, Vinicius de Moraes, got his inspiration. To put things in perspective, the article talks about the girl from Impanema as a character in the song that exists in real life. She was spotted in a restaurant in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, where a poet could simply not take his eyes away from her beauty and grace and right there came up with the song. In face, after the songs success the restaurant changed its name from “Botinaro” to “Garota de Ipanema” which is the Portuguese equivalent to the song title. The girl from Impanema, now 62, still makes an appearance at the restaurant and will even take photos with visitors.

Since the song, the restaurant has been a huge sensation and people from all over the world go to the restaurant in hopes that they will meet the original Ipanema girl. It is clear that the relation to place the song portrays is at the very place the girl was spotted and the poetic lyrics were written. People relate the restaurant to the song and to the girl in the song and it is my assumption that is why the restaurant has become such a popular tourist destination. People feel a personal connection to place through their emotional experiences though music. Personally, when I listen to the girl from Ipanema, I think of Rio and perhaps the reward from attending the restaurant leaves people with a sense of place to relate with to the song. Either way, the song and the restaurant have been a huge hit thanks to Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (or “Helo” for short)!

http://www.thestar.com/Travel/article/186228