"Wonderful! Wonderful!" is a

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

written Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

Sherman Edwards Sherman Edwards (April 3, 1919 – March 30, 1981) was an American composer, jazz pianist, and songwriter, best known for his songs from the 1969 Broadway musical '' 1776'' and the 1972 film adaptation. Early life Edwards was born in the East ...

, with

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, a ...

Ben Raleigh Ben Raleigh (June 16, 1913, New York – February 26, 1997, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood) was an American lyricist and composer responsible for a number of major hits, including "Dungaree Doll", "Wonderful! Wonderful!", "Hold on Girl", "She's ...

. The song was first published in 1956. In the United States, a

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

Johnny Mathis John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum s ...

reached number 14 on the ''Billboard'' charts. It was Mathis' debut single.

Other versions

*In the United Kingdom,

Ronnie Hilton Ronnie Hilton (born Adrian Hill; 26 January 1926 – 21 February 2001) was an English singer and radio presenter. According to his obituary in ''The Guardian'' newspaper, "For a time Hilton was a star – strictly for home consumption – with ...

recorded a version that reached number 27 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

. *In 1963, a recording by

the Tymes The Tymes are an American soul vocal group who enjoyed equal success in the United Kingdom and in their homeland. They are one of the few acts to have one and only one chart-topper in both the US and UK with different songs. Early career The ...

peaked at number 23 on the R&B charts and number 7 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Their version also spent four weeks at number 2 on the

Easy Listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

chart and reached number 7 in Canada. *A cover of the song was created for the '' X-Files'' episode "

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

". Cornell et al (1998), p. 286. Delasara (2000), p. 125. The reason a cover was used rather than the original was because when Mathis read the episode's screenplay and saw its graphic content, he refused to allow his version to be used in the episode, thus necessitating a cover.

David Nutter David Nutter (born 1960) is an American television and film director and television producer. He is best known for directing pilot episodes for television. In 2015, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series ...

, an ''X-Files'' producer, originally planned to record the cover himself as he also had a background in music but in the end, another singer was hired because he sounded more like Mathis than Nutter did. The episode's director

Kim Manners Kim Manners (January 13, 1951 – January 25, 2009) was an American television producer, director and actor best known for his work on ''The X-Files'' and ''Supernatural''. Early life Kim Manners was raised in a show business family. His fathe ...

explains his reason for wanting to use the song because "certain songs ike 'Wonderful! Wonderful!'have a creepy, icky quality that none of us have really openly acknowledged". Hurwitz & Knowles (2008), pp. 91–92

References

1956 songs 1956 debut singles 1963 singles Columbia Records singles Johnny Mathis songs The Tymes songs Songs written by Sherman Edwards Songs with lyrics by Ben Raleigh {{1950s-pop-song-stub