The Japanese Sandman is a song from 1920, composed by Richard A. Whiting

Richard A. Whiting

Richard Armstrong Whiting was a composer of popular songs including the standards, "Hooray for Hollywood", "Ain't We Got Fun?" & "On the Good Ship Lollipop"....

 and with lyrics by Raymond B. Egan

Raymond B. Egan

Raymond Blanning Egan was a songwriter. He moved to the United States in 1892 and settled in Michigan where he attended the University of Michigan. His first job was a bank clerk, but he soon moved onto be a staff writer for Ginnells Music Co...

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Content

The song is about a sandman

Sandman

The Sandman is a figure in folklore who brings good sleep and dreams.Sandman may also refer to:-People:*Mark Sandman, singer and co-founder of the band Morphine*Charles W...

 from Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, who exchanges yesterdays for tomorrows. The number has a very Oriental atmosphere, and is similar to many other songs from the interbellum who sing about a dreamy, exotic setting.

The song was Paul Whiteman's first record and sold over two million copies. It has been subsequently performed by several musical artists like Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, Bix Beiderbecke

Bix Beiderbecke

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...

, Artie Shaw

Artie Shaw

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....

, Earl Hines

Earl Hines

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...

, Paul Young

Paul Young (singer and guitarist)

Paul Antony Young is an English pop musician. Formerly the frontman of the short-lived bands Kat Kool & The Kool Cats, Streetband and Q-Tips, his following solo success as a solo recording artist turned him into a 1980s teenage pop idol...

, Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

, The Andrews Sisters

The Andrews Sisters

The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...

, Freddy Gardner

Freddy Gardner

Frederick James "Freddy" Gardner was a leading British jazz and dance band musician during the 1930s and 1940s....

 and Freddy Sunder.

Additionally, the song was recorded by the Nazi-German

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 band Charlie and his Orchestra

Charlie and his Orchestra

Charlie and his Orchestra were a Nazi-sponsored German propaganda swing band...

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

In popular culture

It's also often used in cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s, like The Ducktators

The Ducktators

The Ducktators is a Looney Tunes black and white cartoon that was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions and was released in 1942 by Warner Bros. Directed by Norman McCabe, the cartoon satirizes various events of World War II. The title is a pun on dictator.-Story:The cartoon takes place on a...

 (1942), usually to mock Japanese characters (because of World War II).

The Japanese boxer Harold Hoshino was nicknamed "The Japanese Sandman" in the 1930s.

Hoagy Carmichael

Hoagy Carmichael

Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust", "Georgia On My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.Alec Wilder, in his study of the...

 performed the song on ukulele

Ukulele

The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

 in the 1952 film Belles on Their Toes

Belles on their Toes (film)

Belles on Their Toes is a film based on the eponymous novel, Belles on Their Toes by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film had its debut in New York City on May 2, 1952. It was directed by Henry Levin. Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron wrote the screenplay...

.

Whiteman's original can also be heard in the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (film) (1969) and on The Masked Marauders

The Masked Marauders

The Masked Marauders is a record album released on the Warner Bros. Reprise/Deity label in the fall of 1969. The recording captured a purported "super session" of the era's leading rock and roll musicians, including Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney...

 album from the same year.

Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

 quotes the song on the final track of his album Joe's Garage

Joe's Garage

Joe's Garage is a 1979 rock opera by Frank Zappa. Zappa stated that along with Lumpy Gravy, this album was one of his finest achievements. It was originally released as two separate albums, the first comprising Act I, and the second part as a double-album which made up Acts II & III. All three...

 (1979): "Little Green Rosetta". Since Zappa was a doowop fan, he probably references the cover by The Cellos.

Saint Etienne

Saint Etienne (band)

Saint Etienne are an English Pop group comprising Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. They are named after the French football team AS Saint-Étienne.-History:Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were childhood friends and former music journalists...

 make a reference to this in their song B92 in their 2002 album Finisterre

Finisterre (Saint Etienne)

Finisterre is an album by the British pop band Saint Etienne. It was released by Mantra Records in 2002; and as a deluxe edition by Heavenly Records in 2010.-Commentary:...

.

The song appears in the 2009 fantasy film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

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 traveling theater troupe whose leader, having made a bet with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations...

.

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.

Sources

• The lyrics (http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/t/thejapanesesandman.shtml)
• About the song (http://parlorsongs.com/issues/2003-1/thismonth/featureb.php)
• A list with covers of the song (http://honkingduck.com/mc/discography?field_combo_value=&field_selection_value=japanese+sandman)