"Perfidia" is a popular song written by Alberto Domínguez (1911–1975), a Mexican composer and arranger born in the state of Chiapas, about love and betrayal. Aside from the original Spanish, other renditions exist, including English

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...

 and instrumental versions. The English lyrics are by Milton Leeds. The song was published in 1939 and became a hit for Xavier Cugat

Xavier Cugat

Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...

 in 1940. This version was used by director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild , Ashes of Time , Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together and 2046...

 in his films Days of Being Wild

Days of Being Wild

Days of Being Wild is a 1990 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar-wai. The film stars some of the best-known actors and actresses in Hong Kong, including Leslie Cheung, Carina Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau. Tony Leung Chiu Wai also appears in a silent cameo role lasting several...

, In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love is a 2000 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung...

, and 2046

2046 (film)

2046 is a 2004 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai. It is a loose sequel to the 1991 Hong Kong film Days of Being Wild and the 2000 Hong Kong film In the Mood for Love...

.

"Perfidia"' has been recorded by many artists, including Julie London

Julie London

Julie London was an American singer and actress. She was best known for her smoky, sensual voice. London was at her singing career's peak in the 1950s. Her acting career lasted more than 35 years...

, The Four Aces

The Four Aces

The Four Aces is an American male traditional pop music quartet, popular since the 1950s. Over the last half-century, the group amassed many gold records. Its million-selling signature tunes include "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing", "Three Coins in the Fountain", "Stranger in Paradise", "Tell Me...

, Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

, Laurel Aitken

Laurel Aitken

Lorenzo Aitken , better known as Laurel Aitken, was a singer and one of the originators of Jamaican ska music. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of ska".-Career:...

, Mel Torme

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

, Olavi Virta

Olavi Virta

Olavi Virta was a Finnish singer, acclaimed as the king of Finnish tango. Between 1939 and 1966 he recorded almost 600 songs, many of which are classics of Finnish popular music, and appeared in many films and theatrical productions...

, Café Tacuba, Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller

Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...

, Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri , born Ioánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer who has sold about 300 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She was known as Nána to her friends and...

, King Tubby

King Tubby

King Tubby was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s...

, Phyllis Dillon

Phyllis Dillon

Phyllis Dillon was a Jamaican ska and reggae singer who recorded for Duke Reid's lucrative Treasure Isle record label in the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Life and career:...

, The Shadows

The Shadows

The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...

, The Ventures

The Ventures

The Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...

, Trini Lopez

Trini Lopez

Trini Lopez is an American singer, guitarist and actor.-Career:Lopez was born in Dallas, Texas, on Ashland Street in the Little Mexico neighborhood. He began his entertainment career in Dallas playing at the Vegas Club, a nightclub owned by Jack Ruby...

, Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...

 (in Spanish), Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

, Los Tres Caballeros and Javier Solis (in Spanish), Cliff Richard

Cliff Richard

Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....

, Lawrence Welk

Lawrence Welk

Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...

, Luis Miguel

Luis Miguel

Luis Miguel Gallego Basteri is a Mexican singer. He is widely known only by the name Luis Miguel and is often referred to as "El Sol de México"...

, Issac Delgado

Issac Delgado

This article is about the musician; for the New Orleans philanthropist with a similar name, see Isaac DelgadoIssac Delgado is one of the founders of the band NG La Banda and is a popular salsa and timba performer.-Early life and family:His father, Luis Delgado, was a tailor and his mother,...

, mandolinist Dave Apollon

Dave Apollon

Dave Apollon was a Russian mandolin player.Today Dave Apollon is regarded as one of the most innovative and influential mandolinists of the Twentieth Century, whose more notable recordings/performances include Two Guitars, Hora staccato by Grigoraş Dinicu and Zigeunerweisen aka "Gypsy Airs" by...

, Olivia Molina

Olivia Molina

Olivia Molina is a German-Mexican singer.Born in Copenhagen, Olivia Molina grew up in Mexico. Her mother was a German dancer, born in Flensburg, her father a musician and bandleader, born in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico. Olivia Molina started her career as a singer in Acapulco, Mexico, at the...

, Perez Prado

Perez Prado

Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, musician , and composer. He is often referred to as the 'King of the Mambo'.His orchestra was the most popular in mambo...

, Ibrahim Ferrer

Ibrahim Ferrer

Ibrahim Ferrer was a popular Afro-Cuban singer and musician in Cuba. He performed with many musical groups including the Conjunto Sorpresa, Orquesta Chepin-Choven and Afro-Cuban All Stars...

, Los Rabanes

Los Rabanes

Los Rabanes is a Latin Grammy winner Rock band from Chitré, Herrera, Republic of Panama. Originated in the year 1992 after the end of the bands "Rum & Coke" and "El Decimo Piso". They formed the band with the idea to play in small pubs and bars at weekends. Soon the group won international...

, and Ben E. King

Ben E. King

Benjamin Earl King , better known as Ben E. King, is an American soul singer. He is perhaps best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me", a U.S...

. More than 150 different versions are collected.

An English arrangement of "Perfidia" was also the founding song of the Princeton Nassoons, Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

's oldest a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 group.

In popular culture

• The song is played in the film Casablanca
  Casablanca (film)
  Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
  
  when Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart dance in the Paris nightclub, in the flashback
  Flashback (narrative)
  Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
  
   sequence of their romance there
• The song is heard in the film The Mask of Dimitrios
  The Mask of Dimitrios
  The Mask of Dimitrios is an American film noir directed by Jean Negulesco and written by Frank Gruber, based on the 1939 novel of the same name written by Eric Ambler . Ambler is known as a major influence on writers and an inventor of the modern thriller genre...
  
  (1944) but the story is set in 1938 (a year before the song was published).
• It also sets a romantic mood in the film Now, Voyager
  Now, Voyager
  Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty....
  
  , with stars Bette Davis
  Bette Davis
  Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
  
   and Paul Henreid seen sitting together in a Rio de Janeiro nightclub:

Henreid (as music plays): May I have this dance?

Davis: Oh, I'm afraid I don't know how to dance.

Henreid: Try it ... just this once.

• This song was the episode title and played in the final episode of "Journeyman" (2007) on NBC
• Perfidia is a song in the Off-Broadway
  Off-Broadway
  Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
  
   musical "Forever Plaid" (1990)
• The song has also been used as the opening theme to the television show George and Martha
  George and Martha
  George and Martha is an animated children's television show which comprises 26 episodes made in 1999. The program revolves around the lives of two hippos: George and Martha...
  
  
• Perfidia was also included on the Dexter Soundtrack
  Dexter: Music from the Showtime Original Series
  Dexter: Music from the Showtime Original Series is a soundtrack album featuring music from the American television series Dexter. The album was released on August 28, 2007, on CD and download from the iTunes Store.-Production and musical content:...
  
  
• This song was in the beginning of the movie " ALEXANDRIA..WHY " directed by YOUSSEF CHAHINE produced in 1978
• Perfidia was used in the Benny Hill Show.
• Perfidia, sung by Linda Ronstadt
  Linda Ronstadt
  Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
  
   was used in the 1992 movie The Mambo Kings Sound Track.
• The argentinian rock band La Portuaria
  La Portuaria
  La Portuaria is an Argentine rock band formed at the beginning of the 1990s. The band developed a fusion sound, constructing Latin rhythms upon a base strongly influenced by jazz and rhythm'n'blues. The line up included Christian Basso on bass and Sebastián Schachtel on keyboards, with Diego...
  
  plays a version of this song