Band leader Zequinha de Abreu wrote this infectious tune in 1917. Performing it at a dance club, one musician commented that the dancers looked like a flock of tico-tico birds, a type of sparrow. The name stuck: “tico-tico no fuba” roughly translates as “sparrow on the cornmeal.”

Tico and the Golden Wings: Leo Lionni (1910-1999)