"Strangers in the Night" is a popular song, made famous in 1966 by Frank Sinatra.
Reaching number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the Easy Listening chart[1], it was the title song for Sinatra's 1966 album Strangers in the Night, which would become his most commercially successful album. The song also reached number one on the UK Singles Chart. Sinatra despised the song, however, and called it "a piece of shit",[2][3] and "the worst song I ever fucking heard". [3] Sinatra's recording won him the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist or Instrumentalist for Ernie Freeman at the Grammy Awards of 1967.
One of the most memorable and recognizable features of the record is Sinatra imitating the melody again with the syllables "doo-be-doo-be-doo", as the song fades to the end. This inspired the name for the cartoon canine Scooby Doo. Also the fading of the song was made too early, and many fans lament the fact that Sinatra's improvisation is cut off too soon. In fact, in the last second of the recording can be heard Sinatra singing "We...", seeming some extra lyrics from the song not included on its original write. Subsequent seconds of the recording remain unreleased and unrevealed.
The track was recorded on April 11, 1966, one month before the rest of the album. Strangely, the recording contains some pitch noises, most notoriously on seconds 1:05-1:06 on the left channel.
Origins
The English lyrics were written by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder. The music was originally recorded by Ivo Robić for the music festival in Split, Croatia. Robić later sang the song in German ("Fremde in der Nacht", lyrics by Kurt Felitz) and in Croatian language ("Stranci u Noći", lyrics by Marija Renota[4]). A thorough adaptation and an arrangement of the piece was done for Sinatra's version by Bert Kaempfert (who had included an instrumental version in his score for the film A Man Could Get Killed); however, this adaptation was taken to court in 1966 by composer Ralph Chicorel, who claimed that 24 of "Strangers"' 32 bars had been copied from his song, "You Are My Love." Chicorel's song, "You Are My Love", was the title tune of a 12-song 1965 LP demo, submitted to both Sinatra and Jack Jones' record companies through the Detroit, Michigan distributor of their labels in 1966. (Jones would record his own rendition of "Strangers" that year.) Also claiming composing rights was Kaempfert's colleague at the time, Herbert Rehbein. The case was settled out of court after years of Kaempfert not showing up to court dates. Chicorel still claims that "true justice" has not been served as the song's success and "wrongful attribution" were not made up for in the settlement.
Cover versions
Notes
External links
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