Friday 5 August 2022

que sera, sera (10. 038)

On this day in 1956, Doris Day topped UK music charts with her rendition of “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” from the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much (having premiered in Cannes in April of that year), featuring Day and Jimmy Stewart in the leading roles. A bit of cheerful fatalism, the song is not some traditional bit of folk music but made by the songwriting team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (the prolific duo responsible for over seven hundred standards for television and the cinema) for the movie—the couple having become unwittingly embroiled in an international assassination attempt, and foiling that find their son kidnapped and held for ransom. Day—who would come to adopt this piece as her signature tune—performs the song loudly as a cue to find their kidnapped son.