Danke Schoen

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"Danke Schoen" is a 1962 song first recorded by Bert Kaempfert, however it gained its fame in 1963 when American singer Wayne Newton recorded his version of it. The music was composed by Bert Kaempfert, with the lyrics written by Kurt Schwaback and Milt Gabler.

The song was released when Wayne Newton was 21 years old, and his youthful timbre at the time is sometimes mistaken for that of a female singer by those unfamiliar with the song. It has been featured in many television commercials and motion pictures, such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Meet the Parents, Matchstick Men, Vegas Vacation, and Fools Rush In.

Brenda Lee recorded Danke Schoen for her 1964 album By Request, produced by Owen Bradley.

In German, "danke schön" is equivalent to the English "thank you very much". It literally means "pretty thanks", similar to the English "thank you kindly." The polite response is "bitte schön," which translates roughly and literally to "you're very welcome" and "pretty please" respectively. In English, the German letter "ö" can also be written as "oe" when the umlaut is unavailable.

The title is mispronounced in the song and in general the way it is spoken in English. "Schön" in German is pronounced as [ʃøːn] ("ö" representing a close-mid front rounded vowel), not "shane", although the latter pronunciation is needed to make it rhyme with "pain". The German word schön, roughly rhymes with the English word "earn" if pronounced non-rhotally. There is no precise equivalent phoneme in English.