A Perfect Day (song)

"A Perfect Day" (first line: "When you come to the end of a perfect day") is a parlor song written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862–1946) in 1909 at the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. Jacobs-Bond wrote the lyrics after watching the sun set over Mount Rubidoux from her 4th-floor room. She came up with the tune three months later while touring the Mojave Desert. For many years the Mission Inn played "A Perfect Day" on its carillon at the end of each day.

"A Perfect Day" was phenomenally successful when first published in 1910. Eight million copies of the sheet music and five million recordings sold within a year; 25 million copies of the sheet music sold during Jacobs-Bond's lifetime, and many millions of recordings circulated as various artists performed the song on the fast-growing means of audio duplication. It was her most-requested number when Jacobs-Bond entertained the soldiers at U.S. Army camps in Europe during World War I. The popularity of "A Perfect Day" became so rampant that even Jacobs-Bond indicated in her autobiography that she had "tired" of hearing it. Along with "Just Awearyin' for You" and "I Love You Truly"—both published in 1901 as part of the collection Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose—"A Perfect Day" augmented Jacobs-Bond's career as the first woman who made a living from composing.

According to "Backstairs At the White House" by former White House seamstress Lillian Rogers Parks, "A Perfect Day" was the favorite song of First Lady Florence Harding. She often had it played at White House concerts.

"A Perfect Day" was in the ship's songbook when RMS Titanic made its fatal maiden voyage in 1912.

"A Perfect Day" has been frequently recorded in English. Otto Leisner's Norwegian translation was popularized by Sissel Kyrkjebø.

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