Bim Bom, composed by Brazilian musician João Gilberto, is regarded as the first song in the bossa nova style which Gilberto introduced in 1956. It was said to have been written as Gilberto watched passing laundresses on the banks of the São Francisco River balance loads of clothes on their heads. The new genre soon created a sensation in music circles within Rio, and led eventually to the first-ever recorded version of a bossa nova song in 1958

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