| Tropicalia | |
| Cover: | Beck - Tropicalia.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Beck |
| Album: | Mutations |
| B-Side: | "Halo of Gold" / "Black Balloon" |
| Released: | 7 December 1998 (UK) |
| Genre: | Tropicalia |
| Length: | 3:23 |
| Label: | Geffen GFS 22365 (UK, 7") GFSTD-22365 (UK, CD) |
| Producer: | Nigel Godrich and Beck Hansen |
| Prev Title: | Deadweight |
| Prev Year: | 1997 |
| Next Title: | Cold Brains |
| Next Year: | 1999 |
"Tropicalia" is a song from Beck's 1998 album Mutations. It was released as a single in the UK in December 1998. The B-side "Halo of Gold" is a drastically reworked cover version of "Furry Heroine (Halo of Gold)" by Skip Spence.
Beck said that "Tropicalia"'s inspiration was "I've always loved a lot of different exotic music. I've been listening to Brazilian music since I was a kid, but I haven't really felt it was something that would come naturally until the last few years. I think for something like 'Tropicalia' I needed to go to places where that music existed in order to get to the point where I could do it myself. I wrote it in the back of the bus on tour, and then later I put lyrics to it. A lot of times I write the melody and the chords of the songs sometimes years before I ever get around it writing lyrics, so it just sits there incubating."[1]
Beck does not play any instrument in the song.[1]