Ipanema is a chic seaside neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1962, a pair of songwriters were sitting in an Ipanema coffee shop and noticed that day after day, Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, known for posterity as Helô Pinheiro, would walk by on her way to the beach. Sometimes she would even come into the coffee shop to buy cigarettes for her mother. She was only seventeen years old, but beautiful enough to inspire a timeless song and win the heart of every man who saw her.
The bossa nova jazz song’s original Portuguese title was “Menina Que Passa” (The Girl Who Passes By). It is about the wistful longing for the passing beauty of youth. The song immortalized its subject; Pinhero would go on to become a model, boutique owner, and eventually a Brazilian Playboy Playmate in 1987. In 2003, at the age of 59, she was Playboy Playmate again alongside her daughter. “The Girl from Ipanema” was a worldwide Grammy-winning hit in the 1960s, both in the original Portuguese as well as in its probably better-known English version. It has gone on to become one of the most covered songs in history, with literally dozens of versions. These include instrumental tracks, gender-reversed versions, and various comic parodies.
“My Sharona” by The Knack
Doug Feiger, guitarist and lead singer for The Knack, had been suffering from writer’s block until the day he saw 17-year-old Sharona Alperin. He was eight years older, but he was head over heels in love and started writing song after song after song inspired by the new beautiful girl in his life. One of those songs would go on to become one of the biggest worldwide smash hit singles of all time: “My Sharona.”
Feiger and Alperin dated for four years, which is a lot longer than the 15 minutes Feiger said it took to write the unforgettable song about her. He and The Knack’s lead guitarist Berton Averre constructed the song together around Averre’s catchy riff and Feiger’s lyrics. The muse behind the music, Sharona herself would go on to become a major Los Angeles area real estate agent listing available properties on -- wait for it -- mysharona.com! As for The Knack, their debut album Get the Knack was one of the most successful debut albums in recorded music history, propelled by its equally auspicious lead single. For a time, it looked like the future belonged to Doug Feiger and The Knack. But it was not to be. Never able to come close to their original success, today they are the virtual poster boys for the one-hit-wonder.
“Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly
That’s what a friend - or, buddy, so to speak - is for. The song that would become possibly the most beloved of Buddy Holly’s hits was originally titled “Cindy Lou,” but Holly changed it to “Peggy Sue” for the sake of his drummer Jerry Allison’s love life. Allison and his future wife, Peggy Sue Gerron, had just broken up, and Holly wanted to do whatever he could to help them get back together. And it worked! Allison and Gerron got back together and got married, an event immortalized by yet another Buddy Holly song, “Peggy Sue Got Married,” although that would prove to be a less successful single.
Buddy Holly was one of the most important and popular of the early pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll music in the 1950s. Having been involved in music since he was a teenager, he rocketed to fame in 1957 on the back of two smash hit singles: “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue.” He remained immensely popular until he was tragically killed just two years later in the plane crash that also took the lives of Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in the event that would come to be known as the Day the Music Died.
“She’s Always a Woman” by Billy Joel
One of the greatest musical storytellers of the 20th century, Billy Joel told one of his most evocative and memorable stories in 1977 with “She’s Always a Woman.” It tells the story of a man’s deep and abiding love for a tough, modern, and flawed woman. That the man is Joel himself is no surprise. The woman behind the song was his then-wife, Elizabeth Weber, to whom he was married from 1973 to 1982.
After several years of growing musical success, Joel was finding himself far from the level of financial security he had earned due to a number of unwise contracts he had signed and deals he had made. It all turned around when Weber took over managing his career. Her tough take-no-prisoners style led to friction with Joel’s business partners, and he wrote the song in support of her. One of the greatest soft rock anthems of all time, the haunting key and time signature keep “She’s Always a Woman” in the listener’s memory long after the song is over. Keep reading to learn more true stories behind some of Billy Joel’s most beloved songs.
“Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses
You never know where a spontaneous jam will get you, and you can bet that the young and relatively unknown members of Guns N’ Roses had no idea what their little practice session that fateful day would do to their lives and careers. They were warming up at the house they shared in Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip, and in no time, the instrumental backbone of the song had taken shape. Hearing it, singer Axl Rose rushed downstairs and started writing the lyrics, which were completed by the next day.
And the inspiration for the lyrics? Axl Rose’s girlfriend, of course, Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the legendary rock duo, the Everly Brothers. She must have been quite the muse, considering the memorably evocative lyrics that fill the song. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” was the third single off of Appetite For Destruction, one of the most successful and influential debut albums in the history of recorded music. Taking the then-popular hair metal genre and making it harder, dirtier, and more immediate, the song changed the face of popular music for a decade.