East Beach at Selsey. The plaque says “This view across the sea to Bognor Regis inspired Eric Coates to compose “By the Sleepy Lagoon” in 1930. It became the BBC signature tune for “Desert Island Discs.” / © Barry Shimmon via Geograph

Many top American songs have become hits immediately. A fair number have made little impression at first but became hits later. These include Easter Parade, I’ll Be Seeing You,  and My Funny Valentine.

 But how many of those belated hits have been based on music of a British composer working in a completely different genre with words by someone who had never met him? Only “Sleepy Lagoon” by Eric Coates comes to mind. Coates composed it in 1930. It only became a hit twelve years later, and first on the other side of the pond.

Eric Coates, composer

Eric Coates was born in 1886, the son of a doctor in a coal mining town in Nottinghamshire. He took an early interest in music and studied violin and viola in Nottingham. Determined to be a professional musician, he moved to London in 1906 and earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Its director, Alexander Mackenzie, told him, “Mark my words young man, ye’ll start as a viola player but ye’ll end up as a composer.”

Sure enough, Coates played viola in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra from 1912-1919 and started to gain a reputation as a composer. But then neuritis forced him to give up performing and concentrate on composing.

He started composing light music in the style of Arthur Sullivan and Edward German, but then during the 1920s, he became among the first European composers to integrate American-style syncopation into orchestral music. He became a national celebrity following the premiere of his London Suite in 1933.

On a warm summer evening in 1930, Coates was in the seaside town of Selsey in West Sussex. As he looked across the deep blue waters of a lagoon, the neighboring town of Bognor Regis appeared as an enchanted city. The scene gave him the idea for a waltz, which he scribbled down quickly and completed when he returned to London.

“By the Sleepy Lagoon” made little impression at first, but after it became a hit song in the US, the BBC started to use it as the theme song for its long-running radio program Desert Island Discs.

Jack Lawrence, lyricist

Jack Lawrence had a long and successful career writing lyrics for hit songs, although not many have become standards. “If I Didn’t Care” became a major hit for the Ink Spots in 1938. “All or Nothing at All” became associated with both Harry James and Frank Sinatra, whose 1943 recording became a hit.

In 1940, Lawrence came across a piano reduction of “By the Sleepy Lagoon” and the tune started running through his head. He soon wrote a lyric to fit it.

A sleepy lagoon, a tropical moon and two on an island,
A sleepy lagoon and two hearts in tune in some lullaby-land,
The fireflies gleam, reflects in the stream, they sparkle and shimmer,
A star from on high, falls out of the sky and slowly grows dimmer.
The leaves from the trees all dance in the breeze and float on the ripples,
We’re deep in a spell, as nightingales tell of roses and dew,
The memory of this moment of love will haunt me forever,
A tropical moon, A sleepy lagoon and you!

He noticed that the piece was published by the English publisher Chappell Music. Chappell had New York office. Lawrence was already on friendly terms with its head, Max Dreyfus.

He showed his work to Dreyfus, who had two objections. First, Lawrence had added the lyrics without Coates’ permission, and SIR Eric Coates may object. Second, he thought thei piece was light classical music and not suitable for a popular song. He suggested that the light classical department might publish it if Lawrence could get Coates’ approval.

The making of the hit song “Sleepy Lagoon”

At that time, London was under attack by Germany. It took a long time to get the song lyrics to Coates and to receive a reply back. Far from objecting, Coates responded to the lyric with not only approval but appreciation: “You have set the words to my music sol cleverly that one would never suspect that the music had been written first!”

Lawrence then showed the song to Harry James, who recorded it—without a vocal—in 1942. This recording became a number 1 hit. Many other recordings followed. A video of Dinah Shore’s lovely rendition follows the James video.

Coates’ original melody is a slow waltz. As often happens with pop arrangements of triple meter pieces, the meter changed to 4/4.

Sources:

Eric Coates / Boosey & Hawkes
Eric Coates ‘By the Sleepy Lagoon’: romantically rural / Alex Burns, Classical Alex Burns. September 20, 2021
Jack Lawrence / Jazz Standards
Sleepy Lagoon: the story behind the song / Jack Lawrence