Original Lolita Recording
Prior to "Seemann...", Viennese singer Lolita had based her career on schlager numbers with Latin or Polynesian themes. Making her recording debut in 1957, Lolita had had four Top 20 hits on the German charts notably with "Der Weiße Mond Von Maratonga" (#2/ 1957) her evident career record as in 1958-59 Lolita's seventh through eleventh single releases all peaked outside the Top 20.
"Seemann..." was recorded by Lolita in a December 15, 1959 session in Vienna. The song's composers Werner Scharfenberger (de) - who was the regular conductor on Lolita's recordings - and Fini Busch (de) had written "Der weiße Mond von Maratonga" and other songs previously recorded by Lolita: however it was another track from the December 15 session which was intended to be Lolita's next A-side release: a cover of the Italian single "Quando la luna" by Corrado Lojacono (it) entitled "La Luna", "Seemann..." having been expediently written to provide a B-side for "La Luna". However it was "Seemann..." which entered the German Top 20 in March 1960: peaking at #2 that June, the single was in the Top 20 for ten months and was the fourth biggest German hit of the year. ("La Luna" would have a belated turn as A-side reaching #30 on the German charts in December 1960.)
"Seemann..." was picked up for US release by Kapp Records in August 1960 in the belief that the track would appeal to Americans of Germanic descent. In fact the single, re-entitled "Sailor (Your Home is On the Sea)" garnered sufficient attention from Top 40 radio to debut at #76 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 dated October 24, 1960: the impact of "Sailor..." in the US has been attributed to the then-current immense US media interest in Germany due to the political situation in Berlin and also Elvis Presley's being stationed on a West German airbase. Kapp Records rush released an augmented pressing of the original Lolita single, a spoken word English translation of the song's lyric by British singer Maureen René being added in a Hamburg studio on November 4, 1960, and "Sailor..." rose as to a #5 Hot 100 peak in December 1960., becoming the first German-language song to rise to the US Top Ten a feat achieved only once more to date: in 1984 by the #1 hit "99 Luftballons" by Nena.
"Sailor..." also afforded Lolita a hit in Australia (#14), Japan (Top 20) and New Zealand reaching #8 in the latter territory despite the #1 ranking achieved there by the Petula Clark English-language rendering "Sailor" (for details of which click here). "Seemann" by Lolita also reached the Top Ten in the Netherlands and in Flemish Belgium - co-ranked with Petula Clark's English rendition - Lolita's "Seemann" reached #12. The track had its most intense chart impact in Norway where it was #1 for nine weeks in the spring of 1961 with sales of 50,000 units recognized that October with the awarding of a Gold Disc. In Sweden "Seemann..." reached #5 in an in tandem charting with the local cover version "Sjöman" by Towa Carson. Estimate for global sales of "Seemann (Deine Heimat Ist Das Meer)"/ "Sailor (Your Home is the Sea)" by Lolita is two million units.
Lolita can be heard singing "Seemann..." on the soundtrack of the film Schick deine Frau nicht nach Italien (de) which premiered September 22 1960.
Read more about this topic: Sailor (song), Continental European Versions, German Language Version
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