"The Japanese Sandman" is a song from 1920, composed by Richard A. Whiting and with lyrics by Raymond B. Egan. The song was first popularized in vaudeville by Nora Bayes, and then sold millions of copies as the B-side for

Paul Whiteman Paul Samuel Whiteman (March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967) was an American bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist. As the leader of one of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s and early 1930s, W ...

's song "

Whispering Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains th ...

Content

The song is about a

sandman The Sandman is a mythical character in European folklore who puts people to sleep and encourages and inspires beautiful dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto their eyes. Representation in traditional folklore The Sandman is a traditional charact ...

from Japan, who exchanges yesterdays for tomorrows. By doing so he "takes every sorrow of the day that is through" and "he'll bring you tomorrow, just to start a life anew." The number has an Oriental atmosphere, and is similar to many other songs from the interwar period that sing about a dreamy, exotic setting. Nora Bayes made a popular recording of the song in 1920. In the same year, the song was released as the B-side of

's first record, "

"; it spent 2 weeks in the no. 1 spot. It has been subsequently performed by several musical artists like

Art Hickman Arthur George Hickman (June 13, 1886 – January 16, 1930) was a drummer, pianist, and bandleader of one of the first big bands. Career Hickman founded a sextet in San Francisco in 1913. The band's first job was playing at training camp for the b ...

, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke,

Artie Shaw Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction. Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists", Shaw led ...

, Earl Hines,

Paul Young Paul Antony Young (born 17 January 1956) is an English musician, singer and songwriter. Formerly the frontman of the short-lived bands Kat Kool & the Kool Cats, Streetband and Q-Tips, he became a teen idol with his solo success in the 1980s. ...

Django Reinhardt Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most ...

the Andrews Sisters The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January ...

Freddy Gardner Frederick James Gardner (23 December 1910 – 26 July 1950) was a British jazz and dance band saxophonist during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life His father sold artist's materials, while his mother was a dressmaker. He took up the saxophone at 1 ...

, and in 2010, a high-fidelity recording of Whiteman's historic arrangement, by

Vince Giordano Vince Giordano (born March 11, 1952 in Brooklyn) is an American saxophonist and leader of the New York-based Nighthawks Orchestra. He specializes in jazz of the 1920s and 1930s and his primary instrument is the bass saxophone. Vince Giordano and ...

and his Nighthawks Orchestra. Additionally, the song was recorded by the

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

propaganda band,

Charlie and his Orchestra Charlie and his Orchestra (also referred to as the "Templin band" and "Bruno and His Swinging Tigers") were a Nazi-sponsored German propaganda swing band. Jazz music styles were seen by Nazi authorities as rebellious but, ironically, propaganda mi ...

. For propaganda reasons, the lyrics were changed through references to the Japanese Empire.

In popular culture

*The song was often used in American cartoons in the 1940s, such as 1942's ''

The Ducktators ''The Ducktators'' is a 1942 Warner Bros. '' Looney Tunes'' directed by Norman McCabe. The short was released on August 1, 1942, and satirizes events of World War II. The title is a pun on ''dictator''. Plot A pair of farm ducks anticipate the ha ...

'', usually to mock Japanese characters, due to the attack upon the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

by the

Imperial Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

. *An orchestral version is heard in the musical film ''

Rose of Washington Square ''Rose of Washington Square'' is a 1939 American musical drama film, featuring the already well-known popular song with the same title. Set in 1920s New York City, the film focuses on singer Rose Sargent and her turbulent relationship with con ar ...

'' (1939), starring

Alice Faye Alice Faye (born Alice Jeanne Leppert; May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer. A musical star of 20th Century-Fox in the 1930s and 1940s, Faye starred in such films as '' On the Avenue'' (1937) and ''Alexander's Ragtime ...

. *In the 1947 Disney cartoon "Cat Nap Pluto," both Pluto and Figaro are visited by figurative "sandman" likenesses of themselves in coolie hats, seeking to bring on sleep. These references are purely visual, however, as the Whiting song is not heard. *The Japanese boxer, Harold Hoshino, was nicknamed "The Japanese Sandman" in the 1930s. *In 1944 a version of the song plays out the submarine's speaker system to the crew in ''

Destination Tokyo ''Destination Tokyo'' is a 1943 black and white American submarine war film. The film was directed by Delmer Daves in his directorial debut,McGee, Scott"Articles: 'Destination Tokyo' (1944)."'' TCM.com'', 2019. Retrieved: August 15, 2019. and t ...

''. *

Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first ...

performed the song on

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

in the 1952 film, ''

Belles on Their Toes ''Belles on Their Toes'' is a 1950 autobiographical book written by the siblings Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It is the follow-up to their book ''Cheaper by the Dozen'' (1948), which covered the period after Frank Gil ...

''. *Whiteman's original can also be heard in the 1969 film, '' They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' and on '' The Masked Marauders'' album from the same year. *The song appears in the 2009 fantasy film ''

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ''The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'' is a 2009 fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. The film follows a travelling theatre troupe whose leader, having made a bet with the Devil, takes audience me ...

''. *Instrumental versions appeared in almost every one of the first five episodes of the HBO series '' Boardwalk Empire''. A version with lyrics was featured in the show on October 24, 2010. *

The Caretaker ''The Caretaker'' is a play in three acts by Harold Pinter. Although it was the sixth of his major works for stage and television, this psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and corruption among two brothers a ...

sampled the song for his tracks "The Weeping Dancefloor" in ''

We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow ''We'll All Go Riding on a Rainbow'' is the third studio album by the Caretaker, an alias of musician Leyland Kirby. Released in 2003, it was the last of Kirby's "haunted ballroom trilogy", which spans his albums influenced by the film '' The ...

'', and "Stage 4 Post Awareness Confusions J1" in '' Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 4''.

The Cellos version

In 1957, the U.S. doowop band The Cellos recorded "Rang Tang Ding Dong (I Am The Japanese Sandman)", which features the same character, but with different lyrics. Frank Zappa quoted from The Cellos' lyrics in his song "

A Little Green Rosetta "A Little Green Rosetta", by Frank Zappa, is the final song on the 1979 concept album '' Joe's Garage Acts II & III''. The main character from this triple-album rock opera is faced with the decline of the music industry, and is forced to work ...

", from ''

Joe's Garage ''Joe's Garage'' is a three-part rock opera recorded by American musician Frank Zappa in September and November 1979. Originally released as two separate studio albums on Zappa Records, the project was later remastered and reissued as a tripl ...

'' (1979).

References

External links

"The Japanese Sandman"
at the Parlor Songs Academy {{DEFAULTSORT:Japanese Sandman, The 1920 songs Fictional Japanese people Songs about Japan Songs about East Asian people Songs about fictional male characters Songs with music by Richard A. Whiting Songs with lyrics by Raymond B. Egan Works based on European myths and legends Japan in non-Japanese culture Sandman