"I Went to Your Wedding" is a
popular
Popularity or social status is the quality of being well liked, admired or well known to a particular group.
Popular may also refer to:
In sociology
* Popular culture
* Popular fiction
* Popular music
* Popular science
* Populace, the total ...
song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetit ...
written and composed by
Jessie Mae Robinson
Jessie Mae Robinson (née Booker, October 1, 1918 – October 26, 1966) was an American musician and songwriter, whose compositions included many R&B and pop hits of the 1940s and 1950s, including " Black Night", "I Went To Your Wedding", an ...
and published in 1952.
Background
The song's melody is similar to the old Russian song "Po Donu gulyaet kazak molodoi" ("Young Cossack went near the Don"). The song is a report of a wedding, attended by the ex-lover of one of the parties being married, who obviously is still in love with the person to whom it is addressed. While the lines "You came down the aisle/ Wearing a smile/ A vision of loveliness" might suggest the song being directed to a female, the best-known versions of the song have been sung by female singers, presumably to male ex-lovers.
Patti Page recording
The biggest hit version was recorded by
Patti Page. It was recorded on August 6, 1952, and issued by
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it i ...
as catalog number 5899, with the flip side "
You Belong to Me." It first entered the
Billboard chart on August 22, 1952, lasting 21 weeks and reaching number 1 on the chart. "I Went to Your Wedding" also afforded Page a number 1 hit in Australia.
Cover versions
*Another version was recorded by the
Sammy Kaye
Sammy Kaye (born Samuel Zarnocay Jr.; March 13, 1910 – June 2, 1987) was an American bandleader and songwriter, whose tag line, "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye", became one of the most famous of the Big Band Era. The expression springs fr ...
orchestra, on August 15, 1952, and issued by
Columbia Records as catalog number 39856.
*The song was also recorded by
Alma Cogan
Alma Angela Cohen Cogan (19 May 1932 – 26 October 1966) was an English singer of traditional pop in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed the "Girl with the Giggle in Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era.
C ...
in the United Kingdom in 1952.
*A
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
version by
Hank Snow
Clarence Eugene "Hank" Snow (May 9, 1914 – December 20, 1999) was a Canadian-American country music artist. Most popular in the 1950s, he had a career that spanned more than 50 years, he recorded 140 albums and charted more than 85 singles on ...
peaked at number 3 on the ''
Billboard''
Hot Country Singles
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sa ...
chart in 1952.
*The French rendering of "I Went To Your Wedding," re-titled "Ton mariage," was recorded in 1953 by
Lys Assia
Lys Assia (born Rosa Mina Schärer; 3 March 1924 – 24 March 2018) was a Swiss singer who won the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. Assia was born in Rupperswil, Aargau, and began her stage career as a dancer, but changed to singing in 1940 ...
;
Line Renaud and
Tino Rossi
Constantin "Tino" Rossi (29 April 1907 – 26 September 1983) was a French singer and film actor of Corsican origin.
Born in Ajaccio, Corsica, Rossi was gifted with a voice well suited for opera. He became a tenor in the French cabaret style. ...
also recorded versions.
*
Philippine
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
singer
Victor Wood performed and released a bilingual version of "I Went To Your Wedding" in which he alternated the original lyrics with
Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines.
** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
ones.
In popular culture
*The song was parodied by
Spike Jones
Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gun ...
and his City Slickers in December 1952, depicting the singer as glad to "get rid" of the bride.
Ray Stevens
Harold Ray Ragsdale (born January 24, 1939), known professionally as Ray Stevens, is an American country and pop singer-songwriter and comedian, known for his Grammy-winning recordings " Everything Is Beautiful" and " Misty", as well as novel ...
covered the Spike Jones version in 2012 on the 9-CD project, ''The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music.''
See also
*
List of number-one singles of 1952 (U.S.)
References
1952 songs
1952 singles
Patti Page songs
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs written by Jessie Mae Robinson
Hank Snow songs
Songs about marriage
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