"Amapola" is a 1924 song by Cádiz

Cádiz

Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....

-born composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 José María Lacalle García (later Joseph LaCalle

Joseph LaCalle

José María Lacalle was a clarinetist, composer, conductor and music critic. He is best known for composing the song "Amapola".LaCalle was born in Cadiz, Spain and emigrated to the United States as a young man...

), with Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 lyrics. After the composer died in 1937, English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 lyrics were written by Albert Gamse.

Miguel Fleta

Miguel Fleta

Miguel Burró Fleta was a Spanish operatic tenor....

 sang "Amapola" in the 1925 film "The Lecuona Cuban Boys

Lecuona Cuban Boys

The Lecuona Cuban Boys was a popular Cuban orchestra which toured the world for over forty years.The band was founded by Ernesto Lecuona, whose role was that of a patron-entrepreneur. He did not actually play with the band, but sometimes gave a piano recital before the band played. The core of the...

"; Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....

 in the 1939 film "First Love"; and Alberto Rabagliati

Alberto Rabagliati

Alberto Rabagliati was an Italian singer.- Early career:Rabagliati was born in Milan.In 1927 he moved to Hollywood as the winner of a Rudolph Valentino look-alike contest...

 in a 1941 film. 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...

ese singer Noriko Awaya

Noriko Awaya

was a Japanese female Soprano chanson and popular music singer. She has been dubbed the "Queen of Blues" in Japan.- Life and career :...

 released her version of the song in 1937. A popular recorded version was made later by the Jimmy Dorsey

Jimmy Dorsey

James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...

 Orchestra with vocalists Helen O'Connell

Helen O'Connell

Helen O'Connell was an American singer, actress, and dancer.Born in Lima, Ohio, O'Connell joined the Jimmy Dorsey band in 1939 and achieved her best selling records in the early 1940s with "Green Eyes", "Amapola," "Tangerine" and "Yours"...

 and Bob Eberly

Bob Eberly

Bob Eberly was a big band vocalist, best-known for his association with Jimmy Dorsey and his duets with Helen O'Connell....

; this was released by Decca Records

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 as catalog number

Catalog numbering systems for single records

This article presents the numbering systems used by various record companies for single records.- Capitol :...

 3629 and arrived on the Billboard charts on March 14, 1941, where it stayed for 14 weeks and reached #1. Another version, with vocals in English, was recorded by Spike Jones

Spike Jones

Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...

 and his City Slickers in the unforgettable comic style of his band; the flip-side was Jones Polka, a drinking-song, sung in a strong European accent. An orchestral version of "Amapola" served as a leitmotif

Leitmotif

A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...

 in the 1984 gangster film Once Upon a Time in America

Once Upon a Time in America

Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime...

. In 1990 Amapola was sung during the first Three Tenors concert in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. A boy named Brian Ibarra performed this song in a Hispanic show called "Tengo talento Mucho Talento". Ryuichi Kawamura

Ryuichi Kawamura

is a Japanese singer-songwriter, actor and record producer. He is best known as lead singer of the rock band Luna Sea. After the group disbanded in 2000, Ryuichi went on to a successful solo career. In 2005 he formed Tourbillon with, fellow Luna Sea member, Inoran and Hiroaki Hayama...

's cover appears on his 2011 album The Voice.

Lyrics

Spanish version (original)

Amapola, lindísima Amapola,

Sera siempre mi alma tuya sola.

Yo te quiero, amada niña mia,

Igual que ama la flor la luz del dia.



Amapola, lindísima Amapola,

No seas tan ingrata y ámame.

Amapola, Amapola,

Como puedes tu vivir tan sola?


English lyrics (1940) by Albert Gamse

Amapola, my pretty little poppy,

You're like the lovely flower so sweet and heavenly.

Since I found you my heart is wrapped around you,

And, seeing you, it seems to beat a rhapsody.



Amapola, the pretty little poppy

Must copy its endearing charms from you.

Amapola, Amapola,

How I long to hear you say "I love you."