KAEMPFERT-Sinatra – Popular song ‘Strangers in the Night’ – THREE CELLOS

Other Identification: There are many doubts as to the origin of this song; it has a turbulent history!
“Strangers in the Night” is a song generally credited to 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, although it was initially given to Melina Mercouri, who thought that a man’s vocals would suit more to the melody and therefore declined to sing it.
In an interview, Avo Uvezian gave a different account of the story behind Strangers in the Night, stating that he originally composed the song for Frank Sinatra while in New York at the request of a mutual friend who wanted to introduce the two. He wrote the melody after which someone else put in the lyrics and the song was originally titled “Broken Guitar.” He presented the song to Sinatra a week later, but Sinatra did not like the lyrics, so they were rewritten and the song was renamed and became known as Strangers in the Night.
It is sometimes claimed that Croatian singer Ivo Robić was the original composer of “Strangers in the Night,” and that he sold the rights to Kaempfert after entering it without success in a song contest in Yugoslavia. This has not been substantiated.
In 1967 French composer Michel Philippe-Gérard (more commonly known as Philippe-Gérard) established a claim that the melody of “Strangers” was based on his composition “Magic Tango,” which was published in 1953 through Chappells in New York. Royalties from the song were thus frozen until a court in Paris ruled in 1971 against plagiarism, stating that many songs were based on similar constant factors.