Danke Schoen

"Danke Schoen" /ˈdɑːŋkə ʃeɪn/ 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. It regained fame when it was featured in the 1986 American comedy film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, lip synced by the main character, Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick). The music was composed by Bert Kaempfert, with the German lyrics written by Kurt Schwabach and the English lyrics by Milt Gabler. The melody was originally released without lyrics under the title "Candlelight Cafe".

Newton's version

Wayne Newton's first version was released when he was 21 years old. The song was originally intended for singer Bobby Darin as a follow-up to his hit single Mack the Knife, but after seeing Newton perform at the Copacabana, Darin decided to give the song to Newton and transposed the key of the recording to fit Newton's voice. Newton's high tenor is occasionally 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, Fools Rush In as well as the French-American comedy Crime Spree. In 2015, it was used in a television commercial for Bank of America. The Newton version peaked at Billboard positions #13 pop, #3 easy listening.

Other versions

In the same year as Newton, Laila Kinnunen sang a purely Finnish version. The tone and the words "Auf Wiedersehen" at the end suggest a similar sentiment of this version.

Connie Francis recorded the song in French, Japanese, Spanish and Italian, keeping the original title line "Danke schoen" in all versions except the Italian recording, which was released as Grazie a te.

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

Anita Lindblom recorded the song in German. Caterina Valente recorded the song in an international version .

In 2004, Deluxe (a Spanish indie-rock artist) recorded a rock version for his album If things were to go wrong.

Linguistic details

In German, "Danke schön" is equivalent to the English "thank you very much." It is similar to the English "thank you kindly." The polite response is "bitte schön" or "bitte schoen"; in this respect it is roughly equivalent to "you are very welcome [to the item or favor offered]", in that both replies represent ratification of the recipient's accepting the item or favor.

In German, schön (pretty) has a sound, "ö", that is not used in English. In the English lyrics the word is pronounced throughout the song as it is in Yiddish, שיין [ˈʃɛjn], approximately rhyming with "pain" rather than as German schön [ˈʃøːn]. Note that the German letter "ö" can also be written using the older typography "oe" (schön = schoen) – of which the umlauted O is a contraction – when umlauts are unavailable or not readily accessible.

External links

• Song lyrics