He came from an intellectually privileged family background—his father Sérgio Buarque de Holanda was a well-known historian, sociologist and journalist and his mother Maria Amélia Cesário Alvim was a painter and pianist.

[4] He made his public debut as musician and composer in 1964, rapidly building his reputation at music festivals and television variety shows when bossa nova came to light and Nara Leão recorded three of his songs.

[4] His eponymous debut album exemplified his future work, with catchy sambas characterized by inventive wordplay and an undercurrent of nostalgic tragedy.

Despite that, Buarque was criticized by two of the leading musicians at the time, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil as they believed his musical style was overly conservative.

[2] At this time his thinly veiled protest single "Apesar de Você" ("In spite of You" – in reference to the military dictatorship) was also produced.

[7] Buarque also wrote a play named Calabar, about the Dutch invasion of Brazil in the seventeenth century, drawing parallels with the military regime.

[8] Despite the censorship, songs such as "Samba de Orly" (1970), "Acorda amor" (1974, as "Julinho da Adelaide") manifested Buarque's continuing opposition to the military regime.

[9][10] He later wrote Budapeste, a novel that achieved critical national acclaim and won the Prêmio Jabuti,[11] a Brazilian literary award comparable to the Booker Prize.

This song is the subject of the final chapter of the book First Chico Buarque by Charles A. Perrone (London: Bloomsbury, 2022) in the Brazil 33 1/3 series.