"Tangerine" is a popular song. The music was written by
Victor Schertzinger, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song was
published in 1941.
It was introduced in the 1942 movie,
The Fleet's In, produced by Paramount Pictures, directed
by Schertzinger, and starring Dorothy Lamour, William Holden,
Eddie Bracken, singer Cass Daley, and Betty Hutton in her
feature film debut.
The most popular recorded version of the song was made by
the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra with vocalists Helen O'Connell and
Bob Eberly. The recording was released by Decca Records as
catalog number 4123. The record first reached the
Billboardcharts on April 10, 1942 and lasted 15 weeks on
the chart, peaking at #1. A disco instrumental version by the
Salsoul Orchestra revived the song, bringing it into the top
twenty in 1976.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass recorded a
leisurely-paced version of the song for their album
Whipped Cream & Other Delights.
The tune was featured as background music in the movie
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
The Pet Milk company used the melody for a 1960s liquid diet
product called Sego. The opening line "Tangerine, she is all
they say" was replaced by "There she goes, she's a Sego girl."
The tune later became the jingle for Pillsbury's Figurines, a
diet aid, during the 1970s.