This Happy Madness

"This Happy Madness" (aka "Estrada Branca", Portuguese for "white road") is a bossa nova song composed in 1958 by Antônio Carlos Jobim with lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes. English-language lyrics were added later by Gene Lees.

According to Jobim's sister, Helena, he composed "Estrada Branca" in their parents’ home in the village of Poço Fundo, and it was one of several songs inspired by the rain.[1]

Gene Lees, who wrote the English lyrics, said, "The melody is one of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s early ones, and the song is, again, very difficult to sing." Music writer Doug Ramsey praised Lees' work on the song: "'This Happy Madness' is one of the finest sets of lyrics to grace a Jobim song in any language."[2]

The first recording of the song was in April 1958 by Elizete Cardoso for her album Canção do Amor Demais, which bossa nova historian Ruy Castro says "inaugurated the bossa nova sound."[3]

Recorded versions

References
  1. Jobim, Helena, Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man, Hal Leonard, Montclair, NJ, 2011. ISBN 9781617803437>
  2. Lees, Gene, Singers and the Song II, Oxford University Press, New York, 1998. ISBN 0195115562>
  3. Castro, Ruy, Bossa nova: the story of the Brazilian music that seduced the world, A Cappella Books, Chicago, IL, 2000. ISBN 9781556524097>
  4. Second Hand Songs Estrada Branca


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