Songfacts®:

• Widely regarded as the first recorded bossa nova song, "Chega de Saudade" was written by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes and first recorded by Joao Gilberto on guitar with singer Elizete Cardoso in 1957. Two years later, Gilberto re-recorded the song with a simpler arrangement for his debut album, Chega de Saudade, causing a sensation when the melodic, samba-influenced groove hit Brazilian radio.
• The Portuguese-language love tune finds the lonely narrator desperately hoping his lover will return. Vinícius de Moraes admitted he struggled writing the lyrics because of "the arduousness of trying to fit the words into a melodic structure with so many comings and goings."
• By the early '60s, the bossa nova craze crossed over to the US with loads of popular singers borrowing the cool sway of the genre for a number of hits, including Eydie Gorme with "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" and Elvis Presley with "Bossa Nova Baby." But it was another Jobim/de Moraes collaboration the marked the peak of the bossa nova fervor: "The Girl From Ipanema," sung by Gilberto's then-wife Astrud Gilberto.
• The lyrics for the English version, titled "No More Blues," was written by jazz singer/songwriter Jon Hendricks and music publisher Howard S. Richmond (under the pseudonym Jessie Cavanaugh).
• Frank Sinatra, accompanied by Jobim, recorded this for his 1967 album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. The bossa nova-influenced pop album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year but lost to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• "Mission: Impossible" composer Lalo Schifrin recorded this for his 1962 album Bossa Nova: New Brazilian Jazz.
• Gilberto's version was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.
• This inspired the 2007 Brazilian-French movie of the same name. Directed by Lais Bodanzky, the romantic drama centers around a group of elderly people who frequent a ballroom in Sao Paulo.