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" Misirlou" ( < 'Egyptian' < Miṣr 'Egypt') is a folk song[1] from the Eastern Mediterranean region. The song's original author is unknown, but Arabic music, Greek, and Jewish music musicians were playing it by the 1920s. The earliest known recording of the song is a 1927 Greek rebetiko/tsifteteli composition. There are also Arabic belly dance, Albanian, Armenian, Serbian, Persian, Indian music and Turkish versions of the song. This song was popular from the 1920s onwards in the Arab American, Armenian American and Greek American communities who settled in the United States.
The song was a hit in 1946 for Jan August, an American pianist and xylophonist nicknamed "the one-man piano duet". It gained worldwide popularity through Dick Dale's 1962 American surf music version, originally titled " Miserlou", which popularized the song in Western world popular culture; Dale's version was influenced by an earlier Arabic folk version played with an oud. Various versions have since been recorded, mostly based on Dale's version, including other surf and rock music versions by bands such as the Beach Boys, the Ventures, and the Trashmen, as well as international orchestral easy listening (exotica) versions by musicians such as Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. Dale's surf rock version was heard in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction.
The earliest known recording of the song was by the rebetiko musician Theodotos ("Tetos") Demetriades () in 1927. Demetriades, an Ottoman Greeks, was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, in 1897, and he resided there until he moved to the United States in 1921, during a period when most of the Greek speaking population Greek genocide the emerging Turkish state. It is likely that he was familiar with the song as a folk song before he moved to the United States. As with almost all early rebetika songs (a style that originated with the Greek refugees from Asia Minor in Turkey), the song's actual composer has never been identified, and its ownership rested with the band leader. Demetriades named the song "Misirlou" in his original 1927 Columbia Records recording, which is a Greek assimilated borrowing of the regional pronunciation of "Egyptian" in Turkish ("Mısırlı"), as opposed to the corresponding word for "Egyptian" (female) in Greek, which is Αιγύπτια ( Aigyptia).
The rebetiko version of the song was intended for a Greek tsifteteli dance, at a slower tempo and a different key than the Oriental performances that most are familiar with today. This was the style of recording by Michalis Patrinos in Greece, circa 1930, which was circulated in the United States by the Orthophonic label; another recording was made by Patrinos in New York City in 1931 as well.
The song's Oriental melody has been so popular for so long that many people, from Morocco to Iraq, claim it to be a folk song from their own country. In the realm of Middle Eastern music, the song is a very simple one, since it is little more than going up and down the Hijaz Kar or double harmonic scale (E–F–G♯–A–B–C–D♯). It still remains a well known Greece, Klezmer and Arab folk song.
Harry James recorded and released "'Misirlou" in 1941 on Columbia 36390, and the song peaked at No. 22 on the U.S. chart.
In 1946, pianist Jan August recorded a version of the song on Diamond Records (Diamond 2009), which reached No. 7 on the Billboard Jockey charts in the U.S.Joel Whitburn's Pop Hits 1940-1954, Record Research 1994
In 1951, Turkish-Jewish polyglot singer Darío Moreno recorded a version with lyrics sung in French.
In 1962, Dick Dale rearranged the song as a solo instrumental rock guitar piece. During a performance, Dale was bet by a young fan that he could not play a song on only one string of his guitar. Dale's father James Monsour and uncles were Lebanese-American musicians, and Dale remembered seeing his uncle play "Misirlou" on one string of the oud. He vastly increased the song's tempo to make it into rock and roll. It was Dale's surf music version that introduced "Misirlou" to a wider audience in the U.S. Dale recorded a new version with faster tempo for his 1975 Greatest Hits compilation.
Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi recorded a live version with his quartet at the Trident Jazz Club in Sausalito, California in December 1962. It was released the following year on Vince Guaraldi in Person, and received critical accolades from Why It Matters blogger James Stafford stating "for sheer plaster-a-smile-on-your-face delight, nothing beats his take on the Mediterranean traditional song".
The Beach Boys recorded a Dale-inspired "Misirlou" for the 1963 album Surfin' U.S.A.
In 1972, Serbia folk singer Staniša Stošić recorded his version of the song, called "Lela Vranjanka" ("Lela from Vranje").
The dance was first performed at a program to honor America's allies of World War II at Stephen Foster Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh on March 6, 1945. Thereafter, this new dance, which had been created by putting the Syrtos Kritikos to the slower "Misirlou" music, was known as Misirlou and spread among the Greek-American community, as well as among non-Greek U.S. folk-dance enthusiasts.
It has been a staple for decades of dances held at Serbian Orthodox churches across the U.S., performed as a kolo, a circle dance. The dance is also performed to instrumental versions of "Never on Sunday" by Manos Hadjidakis – though in the Serbian-American community, "Never on Sunday" was popularly enjoyed as a couple's dance and actually sung in English. "Never on Sunday" was often one of only two songs performed in English at these dances, the other song being "Spanish Eyes" (formerly "Moon Over Naples") also internationally popular in its time.
The Misirlou dance also found its way into the Armenian-American community who, like the Greeks, were fond of circle dances, and occasionally adopted Greek dances. The first Armenian version of "Misirlou" was recorded by Reuben Sarkisian in Fresno the early 1950s. Sarkisian wrote the Armenian lyrics to "Misirlou" which are still sung today, however he wrote the song as "Akh, Anoushes" ("Ah, My Sweet") while later Armenian singers would change it to "Ah Anoush Yar" ("Ah, Sweet Lover"; Yar meaning sweetheart or lover, from Turkish).
The song was selected by the Athens 2004 Olympics Organizing Committee as one of the most influential Greek songs of all time, and was heard in venues and at the closing ceremony – performed by Anna Vissi.
In March 2005, Q magazine placed Dale's version at number 89 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Q magazine - 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever!
The Black Eyed Peas heavily incorporates Dale's version of "Misirlou" in their 2006 single "Pump It" from their album Monkey Business.
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