"Sleepy Lagoon" is a popular song, based on an orchestral
'valse serenade' originally written by British composer Eric
Coates, with lyrics by Jack Lawrence.
Lawrence heard the music and wrote a song lyric, then took
the lyric to Chappell, the publisher of Coates' original
melody. The head of Chappell's New York office, Max Dreyfuss,
was concerned that this lyric had been added without consulting
the composer, who was a famous British classical composer and
"may resent your tampering with his melody." Dreyfuss also
didn't think the melody belonged in the popular genre, and was
better suited to treatment as a light classical piece.
After some time during which Lawrence attempted to contact
Coates (this was 1940, and Britain was in the middle of World
War II, making communication difficult) communication was
established, and contrary to Dreyfuss' fears, Coates thought
the lyric fitted so well that one could hardly believe it had
been written to a pre-existing melody. The resulting song was
published as a collaboration of Lawrence and Coates, and when
Lawrence showed the song to bandleader Harry James, it was
recorded for a major hit (again counter to Dreyfuss' thoughts).
Other hit versions were recorded by Dinah Shore, David Rose,
Fred Waring, Glenn Miller and others.
The recording by James was released by Columbia Records as
catalog number 36549. It first reached the Billboard magazine
Best Seller chart on April 17, 1942 and lasted 18 weeks on the
chart, peaking at #1.
In 1942, the original version was recorded (with added
seagulls) for introducing the BBC radio series
Desert Island Discs, and the theme is still in use
today.
The song made the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960, in a version by
the Platters, found originally on the flipside of the 1960 top
ten "Harbor Lights".
The song is used at one of the rides (The Magic Clock) in De
Efteling in The Netherlands, one of Europe's largest theme
parks.