Trade Winds

By Charles Tobias & Cliff Friend
1940

The prolific Tin Pan Alley tunesmith Tobias (pictured) put this one together with occasional collaborator Friend (the duo would enjoy a hit two years later with the World War II anthem, "We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again"). None other than Bing Crosby snatched up the song and immediately made a hit out of it. Very popular in the early 1940s, it can even be heard in several Warner Bros. cartoons of the period.

Lyrics:

Down where the trade winds play,
Down where you lose the day,
We found a new world where paradise starts,
We traded high way down where the trade winds play.

Music was everywhere,
flowers were in her hair,
Under an awning of silvery boughs,
We traded vows the night that I sailed away.

Oh trade winds, what are vows that lovers make,
Oh trade winds, are they only made to break,

When it is may again,
I’ll sail away again,
Though I’m returning, it won’t be the same,
She traded her name way down where the trade winds play.

Recorded By:

Frank Sinatra
Martin Denny
Lou Rawls
Billy Vaughan
Tommy Dorsey