A Thousand Violins
1949



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Highlights
  • Written for the 1949 Paramount Pictures film The Great Lover, starring Bob Hope, Rhonda Fleming, and George Reeves.
  • A romantic comedy that takes place on an ocean liner, an inept scoutmaster pursues a duchess while a murderer pursues him.
  • Screen Director’s Playhouse broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of The Great Lover on March 22, 1951 with Bob Hope and Rhonda Fleming reprising their film roles.
  • Sung by Fleming who plays the part of the destitute duchess.



Recording History
Chucho Avellantet
C. Castillo
Bing Crosby, Voice Masters: Bing Crosby
Emery Deutsch Orchest
Rhonda Fleming, from the soundtrack of "The Great Lover"
Wayne King
Los Tres Diamantes
Vera Lynn
Sandy Marshall
Tony Martin, Tenement Symphony
Patti Page
Pérez Prado
The Russ Case Orchestra
Dinah Shore
Paul Weston and Norman Luboff
Victor Young
Lyrics
Romany, rhapsody, play to me,
Sing to me of gypsy campfires, gypsy madness, gypsy love.
With violins enchanting you
A sigh begins, what can you do?

They say and gypsies know,
One day many moons ago.
Two lovers knew such bliss,
A thousand violins played when they would kiss.

And now like days gone by,
When two gypsy lovers sigh
A thousand violins, sighing violins,
Come from the sky.

Sweet serenade please come to me
I need your aid to make him (her) see.
To make those lips that haunt me so,
And taunt me so, want me so.

My darling, take my heart
And make magic music start.
Be still, and we may hear
Those thousand violins so near.

To make those lips that haunt me so,
And taunt me so, want me so

My darling take my heart
And make magic music start
Be still and we may hear
Those thousand violins so near.
A THOUSAND VIOLINS As sung by Rhonda Fleming in the Paramount Picture The Great Lover, Paramount Music Corp., 1949. Words and Music by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (Special Picture Release)