Three O'Clock in the Morning

"Three O’Clock in the Morning" is a waltz composed by Julián Robledo that was extremely popular in the 1920s. Robledo published the music as a piano solo in 1919, and two years later Dorothy Terriss wrote the lyrics. Paul Whiteman’s instrumental recording in 1922 became one of the first 20 recordings in history to sell over 1 million copies.

Julián Robledo, an Argentine composer born in Spain, published the music for “Three O’Clock in the Morning” in New Orleans in 1919. In 1920 the song was also published in England and Germany, and lyrics were added in 1921 by Dorothy Terriss (the pen name of Theodora Morse). The song opens with chimes playing Westminster Quarters followed by three strikes of the chimes to indicate three o'clock. The lyrics then begin: It's three o'clock in the morning, we've danced the whole night through.

This “Waltz Song with Chimes” created a sensation when it was performed in the final scene of the Greenwich Village Follies of 1921. In this performance Richard Bold and Rosalind Fuller sang the song while ballet dancers Margaret Petit and Valodia Vestoff rang the chimes.Frank Crumit recorded the song for Columbia Records in 1921, but its biggest success came in 1922 when Paul Whiteman released a recording on the Victor label, selling over 3.5 million copies of the record, and fueling the sale of over 1 million copies of the sheet music.

The song has been recorded by some of the most renowned orchestras of the 20th century, including Frank De Vol and his Orchestra (1950), Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians (1960), Mitch Miller and the Gang (1960), Bert Kaempfert and his Orchestra (1964), and Living Strings (1971). The song also has become a jazz standard with notable recordings by Dizzy Gillespie (1953), Oscar Peterson (1956), Dexter Gordon (1962), Harry James (1965), and Thelonious Monk (1969).

...
Wikipedia