Stranger In Paradise

Album

Single

Label

Columbia Records

Genre

Stage & Screen

Duration

3:05

Composer(s)

George Forrest;Robert Craig Wright

Entered Chart

Nov 28, 1953

Peak Date

Feb 6, 1954

Released

November 2, 1953

Recorded

October 13, 1953[

Catalog #

Columbia 40121

B-Side

Why Does It Have to be me

"Stranger in Paradise" is a popular song from the musical Kismet (1953), credited to Robert Wright and George Forrest. Like almost all the music in that show, the melody was adapted from music composed by Alexander Borodin (1833–1887), in this case, the "Gliding Dance of the Maidens", from the Polovtsian Dances in the opera Prince Igor (1890). The song in the musical is a lovers' duet and describes the transcendent feelings that love brings to their surroundings. Later versions were mostly edited to be sung by male solo artists

Take my hand,
I'm a stranger in Paradise
All lost in a wonderland
A stranger in paradise
If I stand starry eyed,
That's a danger in Paradise
For mortals who stand beside
An angel like you
I saw your face,
And I ascended
Out of the common place
Into the rarest somewhere in space
I hang suspended
Until I know
There's a chance that you care
Won't you answer this fervent prayer?
Of a stranger in paradise
Don't send me in dark despair
From all that I hunger for
But open your angel's arms
To this stranger in paradise
And tell him that he need be
A stranger no more