"Passing Strangers" is a

popular song Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Funk ...

, written in

1957 1957 (Roman numerals, MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday, common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, t ...

by Mel Mitchell,

Stanley Applebaum Stanley Seymour Applebaum (March 1, 1922 – February 23, 2019) was an American composer, arranger, musician and conductor. He arranged the orchestration on many pop hit records, most notably in the early 1960s, including The Drifters' " Sa ...

and Rita Mann. At times it is mis-credited to

Barry Mann Barry Mann (born Barry Imberman; February 9, 1939) is an American songwriter and musician, and part of a successful songwriting partnership with his wife, Cynthia Weil. He has written or co-written 53 hits in the UK and 98 in the US. Early lif ...

and

Sidney Mitchell Sidney D. Mitchell (June 15, 1888 in Baltimore, Maryland – February 25, 1942 in Los Angeles, California) was a Hollywood film industry lyricist and composer. Mitchell is best known for his collaborations with Lew Pollack on movie scores at ...

. The song was recorded that year as a duet by

Billy Eckstine William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously ...

and Sarah Vaughan, and gave them a minor hit in the United States, where the song reached No. 82 on the ''Billboard'' charts. However, it enjoyed greater success in the United Kingdom, where, after initially being released in 1957 and spending two weeks in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

, it was re-issued in 1969. On this occasion, it spent 15 weeks in the chart and peaked at No. 20.

References

1957 singles 1969 singles 1957 songs {{1950s-single-stub