Tangerine (1941 song)
“Tangerine” is a popular song. The music was written by Victor Schertzinger, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song was published in 1941.
It was introduced in the 1942 movie, The Fleet’s In, produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by Schertzinger, and starring Dorothy Lamour, William Holden, Eddie Bracken, singer Cass Daley, and Betty Hutton in her feature film debut.
Covers and recordings[edit]
The most popular recorded version of the song was made by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra with vocalists Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly. The recording was released by Decca Records as catalog number 4123. The record first reached the Billboard charts on April 10, 1942 and lasted 15 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1
. The lyrics in this version differ slightly from those in the movie. On the record, Eberly sings “And I’ve seen toasts to Tangerine/Raised in every bar across the Argentine,” the lyric that became standard. In the movie at that point, the line is “And I’ve seen times when Tangerine/Had the bourgeoisie believing she were queen.”
A disco instrumental version by the Salsoul Orchestra revived the song, bringing it into the top twenty in 1976. Also in 1976, All In the Family gave a nod to the song in the episode “Archie’s Operation”, when Archie Bunker burst into it repeatedly to interrupt son-in-law Mike’s efforts to help pay for Archie’s surgery.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass recorded a leisurely-paced version of the song for their album Whipped Cream & Other Delights.
Stan Getz and Zoot Sims included the song in their 1949 album The Brothers.
The tune was featured as background music in the films Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Double Indemnity.
The Pet Milk company used the melody for a 1960s liquid diet product called Sego. The opening line “Tangerine, she is all they say” was replaced by “There she goes, she’s a Sego girl.” The tune later became the jingle for Pillsbury’s Figurines, a diet aid, during the 1970s.
Brazilian jazz singer and pianist Eliane Elias recorded a bossa nova version on her 2004 RCA release Dreamer.
More than 100 acts have recorded “Tangerine,” including such notable artists as Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker and Paul Desmond, Jim Hall, Harry Connick, Jr., Benny Goodman, Dr. John, Vaughn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Welk.
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