夜间的陌生客 (1966)

"Strangers in the Night" is a song composed by Bert Kaempfert with English lyrics by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder. Kaempfert originally used it under the title "Beddy Bye" as part of the instrumental score for the movie A Man Could Get Killed. The song was made famous in 1966 by Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra's recording of the song reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the Easy Listening chart, and it was also simultaneously a No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. The success of the song led to the release of the album Strangers in the Night which included the title song. This release became Sinatra's most commercially successful album.

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.

Origin

The song was originally an instrumental theme tune from the soundtrack of the film A Man Could Get Killed written by German composer Bert Kaempfert. Part of the melody could be heard in the orchestral title song of the film as well as the end credits. Music publisher Hal Fine played some tracks from the film to Frank Sinatra's producer Jimmy Bowen, and Bowen indicated that Sinatra would record the theme tune titled "Beddy Bye" if lyrics were written for the song, and that the title needed to be changed.

The writing of the lyrics, however, took a few months. Two sets of lyrics were produced but both were rejected. Lyrics were then added by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder, which were accepted. To write the lyrics, Singleton and Snyder took cue from the film where the principal actors James Garner and Melina Mercouri exchanged glances at a bar and became lovers by the end of the film. Snyder suggested that he also had a hand in writing the music, and that he, Singleton and Kaempfert spent two weeks perfecting the song. The song was said originally to have been intended for Melina Mercouri, who thought that a man's vocals would better suit the melody and therefore declined to sing it.

Contested authorship

A number of people have claimed authorship of the song.

In an interview with The New York Times, Avo Uvezian discussed the origins of "Strangers in the Night", saying that he had composed the melody while he was in New York. He was introduced to Frank Sinatra via a mutual friend, and he presented to Sinatra the tune he composed titled "Broken Guitar" with lyrics written by someone else. Sinatra liked the tune but did not like the lyrics, and asked that they be rewritten. Studio songwriters were engaged to produce new lyrics, but Sinatra was said to hate the new lyrics, and announced: "I don't want to sing this." However, he was later persuaded to record the song as "Strangers in the Night".

Uvezian said that Kaempfert was a friend of his, and before he had shown Sinatra the song, he had sent it to Kaempfert for publication in Germany. The melody was used in the film A Man Could Get Killed, but with Kaempfert credited as the sole composer. Uvezian said that he was acknowledged by Kaempfert to be the composer of the song multiple times, including in a written letter.

The Croatian singer Ivo Robić is also said to be the original author of "Strangers in the Night", which he sold to Kaempfert. In an interview on Croatian TV with Croatian composer Stjepan Mihaljinec, Robić said that he had composed a song "Ta ljetna noć" (That Summer Night) as an entry to the Split Festival in the former Yugoslavia, where it was rejected. He sang a first few bars from that song that were identical to "Strangers in the Night". Robić then sold the rights of this song to Kaempfert, who used it in the film. Kaempfert later gave the German version of the song, "Fremde in der Nacht", for Robić to record. Robić is not credited as a songwriter in his 1966 German recording of the song, nor his Croatian version titled "Stranci u noći" released the same year by the Yugoslav record company Jugoton.

In 1967, French composer Michel Philippe-Gérard (more commonly known as Philippe-Gérard) claimed that the melody of "Strangers" was based on his composition "Magic Tango", which was published in 1953 through Chappell & Co. in New York. Royalties from the song were thus frozen until a court in Paris ruled in 1971 that there was no plagiarism, stating that many songs were based on "similar constant factors".

Recording and release

A number of artists recorded the song before Frank Sinatra, including Bobby Darin who recorded the song on March 23, 1966, Jack Jones on April 8, as well as Al Martino. Bowen, Sinatra's producer, however, was unaware that Fine had given the song for others to record, and was surprised when he came across Jones who informed him that he would be recording the song and that it would be released within days. Bowen quickly contacted Ernie Freeman to come up with an arrangement for Frank Sinatra to record "Strangers in the Night" to beat Jones to the song's release.