"I've always loved a lot of different exotic music," Beck commented. "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."
The song was released as a single the following month on 8 December 1998, reaching number 39 in the UK single charts. The CD contains the interesting analog lo fi flavours of B side 'Black Balloon', which was exclusive to this single release.
