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I have always seen Tom Jobim’s “Águas de Março” as a beautifully-conceived usage of Shepard’s Tone in a song:

I have been in love with this song for decades. There is definitely a feeling of circularity going on. Here are a couple of my favorite versions, if anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole.

SF Jazz Collective (heavy modern jazz arrangement):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-F_1OvPdqA

Cassandra Wilson (earthy, lyrics in English):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIehPcFebHo

Trio Mocoto (melody played on Cuica, which is nuts):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqTlFa3Fnlk

These are fantastic. Thank you! I can't imagine how in the world that person in Trio Mocoto played the melody on that instrument. Mind-blowing.

As an aside, I recently heard on the radio a cover of this by Art Garfunkel, which may be one of the worst things I've heard. As you may expect, he mananged to strip all of the life out of the song, which made me sad.

I always heard it the other way... constantly descending (like rain)

Same. Shepard's Tone can refer to either perceptually-rising or falling tones.

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