Stranger in Paradise (song)

Robert Wright and George Forrest. Like almost all the music in that show, the melody was adapted from music composed by Alexander Borodin (1833–1887), in this case, the "Gliding Dance of the Maidens", from the Polovtsian Dances in the opera Prince Igor (1890). The song in the musical is a lovers' duet and describes the transcendent feelings that love brings to their surroundings.^[3] Later versions were mostly edited to be sung by male solo artists.^[4]

Caliph, who is dressed in disguise, has already been struck by her beauty from afar and enters the garden pretending to be a gardener, so that he might speak to her. She begins to sing about how the garden has been strangely transformed before her eyes. He takes over the song and sings about how he, too, strangely feels he has entered paradise when he stands beside an angel such as she. In the song he asks for an indication that she feels the same way about him. Though she feels a strong draw to him she breaks from the song and asks him a mundane question about what flowers to plant. He asks her to meet him again in the garden at moonrise, and she instantly agrees. He asks her to promise she'll keep her rendezvous, and she now takes up the song, singing that it was his face that had made her feel in paradise. They now sing together that they are in bliss in each other's company and how much they need to know the other cares.^[3]

hit record in the United Kingdom.^[6]

Tony Martin (No. 6), Bing Crosby (No. 17), Don Cornell (No. 19), as well as an instrumental version by Eddie Calvert (No. 14) in the UK chart listings. In the same year, the song was recorded in France by Gloria Lasso

Jack Jones, Mantovani, Martin Denny, Wes Montgomery, André Rieu, Saint Etienne, Alexander Armstrong, George Shearing, Sun Ra, the Supremes, Della Reese, Lenny Welch and Toots Thielemans are among the other artists who have recorded cover versions of this standard. Neil Young