Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (January 25, 1927 – December 8, … Read Full Bio ↴Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (January 25, 1927 – December 8, 1994), also known as Tom Jobim, was a Brazilian composer, pianist, songwriter, arranger and singer. Widely considered as one of the great exponents of Brazilian music, Jobim internationalized bossa nova and, with the help of important American artists, merged it with jazz in the 1960s to create a new sound with remarkable popular success. As such he is sometimes known as the "father of bossa nova".

He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within Brazil and internationally.

In 1965 his album Getz/Gilberto was the first jazz album to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It also won for Best Jazz Instrumental Album – Individual or Group and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The album's single "Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema"), one of the most recorded songs of all time, won the Record of the Year. Jobim has left many songs that are now included in jazz and pop standard repertoires. The song "Garota de Ipanema" has been recorded over 240 times by other artists. His 1967 album with Frank Sinatra, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim, was nominated for Album of the Year in 1968.

Antônio Carlos Jobim was born in the middle-class district of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro. His father, Jorge de Oliveira Jobim (São Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul, April 23, 1889 – July 19, 1935), was a writer, diplomat, professor and journalist. He came from a prominent family, being the great nephew of José Martins da Cruz Jobim, senator, privy councillor and physician of Emperor Dom Pedro II. While studying medicine in Europe, José Martins added Jobim to his last name, paying homage to the village where his family came from in Portugal, the parish of Santa Cruz de Jovim, Porto. His mother, Nilza Brasileiro de Almeida (c. 1910 – November 17, 1989), was of Indigenous Brazilian descent from Northeastern Brazil.

When Antônio was still an infant, his parents separated and his mother moved with her children (Antônio Carlos and his sister Helena Isaura, born February 23, 1931) to Ipanema, the beachside neighborhood the composer would later celebrate in his songs. In 1935, when the elder Jobim died, Nilza married Celso da Frota Pessoa (died February 2, 1979), who would encourage his stepson's career. He was the one who gave Jobim his first piano. As a young man of limited means, Jobim earned his living by playing in nightclubs and bars and later as an arranger for a recording label, before starting to achieve success as a composer.

Jobim's musical roots were planted firmly in the work of Pixinguinha, the legendary musician and composer who began modern Brazilian music in the 1930s. Among his teachers were Lúcia Branco and, from 1941 on, Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, a German composer who lived in Brazil and introduced atonal and twelve-tone composition in the country. Jobim was also influenced by the French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and by the Brazilian composers Heitor Villa-Lobos and Ary Barroso. The bossa nova guitar style in Jobim's music has become firmly entrenched in jazz culture. Among many themes, his lyrics talked about love, self-discovery, betrayal, joy and especially about the birds and natural wonders of Brazil, like the "Mata Atlântica" forest, characters of Brazilian folklore and his home city of Rio de Janeiro.

In early 1994, after finishing his album Antonio Brasileiro, Jobim complained to his doctor, Roberto Hugo Costa Lima, of urinary problems. He underwent an operation at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City on December 2, 1994. On December 8, while recovering from surgery, he had a cardiac arrest caused by a pulmonary embolism, and two hours later another cardiac arrest, from which he died. He was survived by his children and grandchildren. His last album, Antonio Brasileiro, was released posthumously three days after his death.

His body lay in state until given a proper burial on December 20, 1994. He is buried in the Cemitério São João Batista in Rio de Janeiro.

Ligia
Antônio Carlos Jobim Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Eu nunca sonhei com você
Nunca fui ao cinema
Não gosto de samba
Não vou a Ipanema
Não gosto de chuva
Nem gosto de sol

E quando eu lhe telefonei

Desliguei foi engano
Seu nome não sei
Esqueci no piano
As bobagens de amor
Que eu iria dizer
Não, Lígia, Lígia

Eu nunca quis tê-la ao meu lado
Num fim de semana
Um chope gelado
Em Copacabana
Andar pela praia até o Leblon
E quando eu me apaixonei
Não passou de ilusão
O seu nome rasguei
Fiz um samba canção
Das mentiras de amor
Que aprendi com você
É Lígia, Lígia

E quando você me envolver
Nos seus braços serenos
Eu vou me render
Mas seus olhos morenos
Me metem mais medo

Que um raio de sol
Lígia, Lígia

Overall Meaning

At first glance, the lyrics to Antônio Carlos Jobim's song Ligia may seem like a list of things the singer dislikes or doesn't care about, but on further inspection, it becomes clear that these are all things that are typically associated with romance and passion in Brazil. The singer states that he never dreamed of Ligia (presumably the person he is singing to), never went to the cinema (where couples go to see romantic movies), doesn't like samba (a passionate Brazilian dance), doesn't go to Ipanema (a famous beach associated with beautiful people and romance), and doesn't like rain or sun (both of which are often used in Brazilian music to symbolize love and passion).

When he calls her, he hangs up by mistake and doesn't even remember her name, let alone any romantic things he was planning to say to her. He never wanted to spend a weekend with her drinking beer in Copacabana or walking on the beach in Leblon (another romantic spot). He admits that when he thought he was in love with her, it was all just an illusion, and he wrote a samba canção (a slow, romantic type of samba) about the lies he learned from her.

Despite all this, he knows that if she were to embrace him in her arms, he would surrender to her, but her dark eyes scare him more than a ray of sunlight. The song is a beautiful commentary on the pressure to conform to traditional romantic ideals and the fear of true intimacy.

Line by Line Meaning

Eu nunca sonhei com você
I never imagined or fantasized about you

Nunca fui ao cinema
I haven't gone to a movie theater

Não gosto de samba
I don't like samba music

Não vou a Ipanema
I don't go to Ipanema beach

Não gosto de chuva
I don't like rain

Nem gosto de sol
I don't even like sunshine

E quando eu lhe telefonei
And when I called you on the phone

Desliguei foi engano
I hung up by mistake

Seu nome não sei
I don't even know your name

Esqueci no piano
I forgot it while playing the piano

As bobagens de amor
The silly things about love