"Jeepers Creepers" is a

popular Popularity or social status is the quality of being well liked, admired or well known to a particular group. Popular may also refer to: In sociology * Popular culture * Popular fiction * Popular music * Popular science * Populace, the total ...

song and

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive lis ...

. The music was written by

Harry Warren Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna; December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981) was an American composer and the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song ...

and the lyrics by

Johnny Mercer John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallich ...

for the 1938 movie '' Going Places''. It was premiered by

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

and has been covered by many other musicians. The song was nominated for the

Academy Award for Best Original Song The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is presented to the ''songwriters'' who have composed th ...

in 1938 but lost to "

Thanks for the Memory "Thanks for the Memory" (1938) is a popular song composed by Ralph Rainger with lyrics by Leo Robin. It was introduced in the 1938 film ''The Big Broadcast of 1938'' by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross, and recorded by Shep Fields and His Orchestr ...

". The song was included in the 1984 Smithsonian collection ''American Popular Song: Six Decades of Songwriters and Singers'' and in the 1998 album ''The Songs of Harry Warren.''

Patti Austin Patti Austin (born August 10, 1950) is an American R&B, pop, and jazz singer and songwriter. Music career Austin was born in Harlem, New York, to Gordon Austin, a jazz trombonist. She was raised in Bay Shore, New York on Long Island. Quincy ...

sang "Jeepers Creepers".

Background

In 1930s Hollywood, black actors were not filmed singing to each other, so Armstrong sang it to a racehorse named Jeepers Creepers. The phrase "jeepers creepers", a

minced oath A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" ...

for "

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

," predates both the song and film. Mercer said that the title came from a

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics. Born and rai ...

line in an earlier movie. The lyrics include:

Jeepers Creepers, where'd ya get those peepers?
Jeepers Creepers, where'd ya get those eyes?

1939 recordings

*There were three popular versions of the song released in 1939, by

Al Donahue Al Donahue (June 12, 1904, Dorchester, Massachusetts - February 20, 1983, Fallbrook, California) was an American violinist and big band leader. Donahue got his start playing in Boston-area campus bands and led a band at Boston's Weber Duck Inn i ...

, Louis Armstrong, and

Larry Clinton Larry Clinton (August 17, 1909 – May 2, 1985) was an American musician, best known as a trumpeter who became a prominent American bandleader and arranger. Biography Clinton was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He became a ver ...

. It served as a

contrafact A contrafact is a musical work based on a prior work. The term comes from classical music and has only since the 1940s been applied to jazz, where it is still not standard. In classical music, contrafacts have been used as early as the parody mas ...

for the

Tadd Dameron Tadley Ewing Peake Dameron (February 21, 1917 – March 8, 1965) was an American jazz composer, arranger, and pianist. Biography Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dameron was the most influential arranger of the bebop era, but also wrote charts for swi ...

composition "Flossie Lou".

Controversy

Siouxsie and the Banshees Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. They have been widely influential, both over their contemporaries and with later acts. ''Q'' magazine in ...

's 1988 single " Peek-a-Boo" caused a minor controversy shortly after its release, as the lines of the chorus ("Golly jeepers/Where'd you get those weepers?/Peepshow, creepshow/Where did you get those eyes?") were found to be too similar to the lyrics of "Jeepers Creepers." To remedy the situation and to avoid legal action, the band gave co-songwriting credit on "Peek-a-Boo" to Warren and Mercer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeepers Creepers (Song) 1938 songs Songs with music by Harry Warren Louis Armstrong songs Songs with lyrics by Johnny Mercer Songs written for films 1930s jazz standards