"Stranger in Paradise" is a popular

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 from the 1953 musical Kismet

Kismet (musical)

Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...

and is credited to Robert Wright

Robert Wright (writer)

Robert [Craig] Wright was an American composer-lyricist for Hollywood and the musical theatre best known for the Broadway musical and musical film Kismet, for which he and his professional partner George Forrest adapted themes by Alexander Borodin and added lyrics...

 and George Forrest

George Forrest (author)

George Forrest was a writer of music and lyrics for musical theatre best known for the show Kismet, adapted from the works of Alexander Borodin.-Biography:...

. Like all the music in that show, the melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

 was based on music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 composed

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...

 by Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...

, in this case, the "Gliding Dance of the Maidens," from the Polovtsian Dances.

Richard Kiley and Doretta Morrow (Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...

and The King and I

The King and I

The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

) performed the song in the original cast of Kismet. Vic Damone

Vic Damone

Vic Damone is an American singer and entertainer.- Early life :Damone was born Vito Rocco Farinola in Brooklyn, New York to French-Italian immigrants based in Bari, Italy—Rocco and Mamie Farinola. His father was an electrician; and his mother taught piano. His cousin was the actress and singer...

 and Ann Blyth

Ann Blyth

Ann Marie Blyth is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:Blyth was born in Mount Kisco,...

 performed the song in the 1955 film

Kismet (1955 film)

Kismet is an American musical film in Cinemascope and Eastman Color released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the fourth movie version of Kismet—the first was released in 1920 and the second in 1930 by Warner Brothers—and the second released by MGM...

.

The most popular version was sung by Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....

 (1953), but other versions by 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...

 and Tony Martin

Tony Martin (entertainer)

Tony Martin is an American actor and singer.-Career:Tony Martin was born on Christmas Day, 1913 as Alvin Morris in San Francisco, California to Jewish immigrant parents. He received a saxophone as a gift from his grandmother at the age of ten. In his grammar school glee club, he became an...

 also received popular favor in 1954. Bennett's version reached number one in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 in May 1955. It was not until 1955 that Kismet, and thus the songs from the show, came to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It was Bennett's debut hit record

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

Keely Smith

Keely Smith

Keely Smith is an American jazz and popular music singer who enjoyed popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. She collaborated with, among others, Louis Prima and Frank Sinatra.-Career:...

, Ray Conniff

Ray Conniff

Joseph Raymond Conniff was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.-Biography:...

, Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...

, George Shearing

George Shearing

Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...

, Curtis Counce

Curtis Counce

Curtis Counce was an American hard bop and West Coast jazz double bassist. The fruit of his 1956 Contemporary Records studio collaboration with tenor saxophonist Harold Land, trumpeters Jack Sheldon and Gerald Wilson, pianist Carl Perkins and drummer Frank Butler was issued in 2007 on a double CD...

, Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes

Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. was an American songwriter, musician, singer and actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the...

, Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

, The Supremes

The Supremes

The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...

 (for their album I Hear A Symphony

I Hear a Symphony (album)

I Hear a Symphony is a 1966 album released by Motown girl group The Supremes on the Motown label.Positioned as a successful attempt to further bridge the gap between traditional pop music, the traditional Motown sound and soul, the album included the title track, The Supremes' sixth number-one...

), Sarah Brightman

Sarah Brightman

Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...

, and 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...

 have also recorded

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s of this standard.

The song was also featured in the video game Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius for the PlayStation

PlayStation

The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...

. Not only did it appear as background music in Parodius, it was also featured in Ape Escape 3

Ape Escape 3

Ape Escape 3 is a platforming video game published and developed by Sony for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was first released in Japan on July 14, 2005, and was later released in North America on January 17, 2006, in Europe on May 5, 2006, and in Australia on May 18, 2006...

on the Saru-Mon's (Immobile) Castle stage.

In the 1999 film, Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions (film)

Breakfast of Champions is a 1999 American comedy film adapted and directed by Alan Rudolph from the novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.-Plot:...

, based on the book of the same name

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. Set in the fictional town of Midland City, it is the story of "two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast." One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is a normal-looking but...

 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the song is used as a recurring motif.

It also appeared in an anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

, Absolute Boy

Absolute Boy

is a 26-episode Japanese anime television series, produced by Ajia-do Animation Works and Bandai Visual, which first aired on NHK between May 21, 2005 and November 19, 2005...

, as a ringtone.

Violinist André Rieu

André Rieu

André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu is a Dutch violinist, conductor, and composer best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra.- Early life and studies :...

 also made an orchestral cover of this song. It is also used in the rap song Prince Igor

Prince Igor

Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...

 by The Rapsody, Warren G

Warren G

Warren G , is an American West Coast rapper and hip hop producer. He is also Dr. Dre's half-brother.His biggest hit is the song "Regulate" with Nate Dogg released in 1994...

 and Sissel

Sissel Kyrkjebø

Sissel Kyrkjebø , also simply known as Sissel, is a Norwegian soprano.Sissel is considered one of the world's top crossover sopranos. Sissel's musical style runs the gamut from pop recordings and folk songs, to classical vocals and operatic arias...