"Perfidia" (Spanish for "

perfidy In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith (such as by raising a flag of truce) with the intention of breaking that promise once the unsuspecting enemy is exposed (such as by coming out ...

", meaning ''faithlessness'', ''treachery'' or ''betrayal'') is a 1939 Spanish-language song written by Mexican composer and arranger Alberto Domínguez (1906–1975). The song is sung from the perspective of a man whose lover has left him. The song has also been recorded in English (with lyrics by Milton Leeds) and as an instrumental.

Recordings

*The song became a hit for

Xavier Cugat Xavier Cugat (; 1 January 1900 – 27 October 1990) was a Spanish musician and bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a leading figure in the spread of Latin music. In New York City ...

on the Victor label in 1940. *In late 1960, a rock instrumental version of "Perfidia" was released by

the Ventures The Ventures are an American instrumental rock band formed in Tacoma, Washington, in 1958, by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle. The band, which was a quartet for most of its existence, helped to popularize the electric guitar across the world during the ...

, which rose to number 15 on the

Billboard chart The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, pr ...

. The record was a Top 10 hit on a number of popular music radio stations, including KYA in San Francisco, KLIF Dallas, KOL Seattle,

KDWB KDWB-FM (101.3 MHz) is an American commercial radio station broadcasting in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, licensed to suburban Richfield. KDWB's radio format is Top 40/CHR. Its transmitter is located in Shoreview, while its studios ...

Minneapolis, WHK Cleveland,

KIMN KIMN (100.3 FM) is a commercial radio station in Denver, Colorado. The station is owned by Stan Kroenke's KSE Radio Ventures and airs a Hot AC radio format. Studios and offices are located on Colorado Boulevard in Glendale, and the transmitte ...

Denver, and KISN Portland. The record topped out at number 11 on the charts of WLS Chicago, and WIBG Philadelphia.

Other recordings

"Perfidia" has been recorded by many artists, including: * Anne Shelton * Laurel Aitken *

Dave Apollon Dave Apollon (born Denis Apollonov, russian: Денис Аполлонов; February 23, 1898 – May 30, 1972) was an American mandolin player. Today Dave Apollon is regarded as one of the most innovative and influential mandolinists of the tw ...

* Juan Arvizu *

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Brave Combo Brave Combo is a polka/ rock/ worldbeat band based in Denton, Texas. Founded in 1979 by guitarist/keyboardist/accordionist Carl Finch, they have been a prominent fixture in the Texas music scene for more than thirty-five years. Their music, bot ...

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Café Tacuba Café Tacvba (Pronounced ''kaˈfe taˈkuβa'') is a band from Ciudad Satélite, Mexico. The group gained popularity in the early 1990s. They were founded in 1989, before they had the current lineup of Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega (lead vocals, ...

* Chico Che *

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...

* Crveni Koralji *

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Phyllis Dillon Phyllis Dillon (27 December 1944 – 15 April 2004)
, ''

Arielle Dombasle Arielle Dombasle (born April 27, 1953)Dombasle's year of birth has been a subject of much debate, and various sources have given dates ranging from 1953 to 1958. is an American-born French singer, actress, director and model. Her breakthrough ro ...

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* Ibrahim Ferrer * The Four Aces *A version by Carlos Garcia, a one-armed Mexican street performer originally from

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, who makes music by blowing on the side of an ivy leaf, and recorded on a sidewalk, was featured on a CD, Sinfonia Urbana. It was overdubbed with strings by the

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for their 2002 album '' Nuevo''. *

Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His conc ...

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Julie London Julie London (née Peck; September 26, 1926 – October 18, 2000) was an American singer and actress whose career spanned more than 40 years. A torch singer noted for her sultry, languid contralto vocals, London recorded over thirty album ...

Trini Lopez Trinidad López III (May 15, 1937 – August 11, 2020) was an American singer, guitarist, and actor. His first album included a cover version of Pete Seeger's " If I Had a Hammer", which earned a Golden Disc for him. His other hits include ...

Los Panchos Originally, Trio Los Panchos are a ''trío romántico'' formed in New York City in 1944 by Alfredo Gil, Chucho Navarro, and Hernando Avilés. The trio became one of the leading exponents of the bolero and the romantic ballad in Latin America. ...

Los Rabanes Los Rabanes is a Latin Grammy winning ska rock fusion band from Chitré, Herrera, Panama. With a career spanning two decades and eight albums, they are considered pioneers in the region, and are the first band from Central America to win a Lat ...

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*Los Tres Caballeros and

Javier Solís Gabriel Siria Levario (4 September 1931 – 19 April 1966), known professionally as Javier Solís, was a Mexican singer and actor. He specialized in the musical genres of bolero and ranchera. Early life Gabriel Siria Levario was the first of ...

(in Spanish) *

Luis Miguel Luis Miguel Gallego Basteri (born 19 April 1970) is a Puerto Rican-born Mexican singer, often referred to as ''El Sol de México'' (The Sun of Mexico), which is the nickname his mother gave him as a child—"mi sol". Luis Miguel has sung in mu ...

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the US Army Air Forc ...

* Olivia Molina * Hugo Montenegro * VIS Limunada (in Serbo-Croatian) *

Sara Montiel María Antonia Abad Fernández MML (10 March 1928 – 8 April 2013), known professionally as Sara Montiel, also Sarita Montiel, was a Spanish actress and singer, who also held Mexican citizenship since 1951. She began her career in the 1940s an ...

Nana Mouskouri Ioanna "Nana" Mouskouri ( el, Ιωάννα "Νάνα" Μούσχουρη ) (born 13 October 1934) is a Greek singer. Over the span of her career, she has released over 200 albums in at least twelve languages, including Greek, French, English, Germ ...

* Lupita Palomera *

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* María Dolores Pradera (in Spanish) * Perez Prado *An English arrangement of "Perfidia" was also the founding song of the

Princeton Nassoons The Princeton Nassoons are a ten to twenty-member low-voice a cappella group at Princeton University. The group has been officially self-selecting (and self-directing) since 1941, although the original group is known to have sung together as ea ...

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's oldest

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

group. *

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Elvira Ríos María Elvira Gallegos Ríos (16 November 1913 – 13 January 1987) was a Mexican singer and actress. One of the most notable performers of Agustín Lara's songs, Ríos was the first Mexican singer who achieved international success through r ...

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(in Spanish and English) * Andy Russell *

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(with and not with

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is an Indian-born British musican, singer, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has total sales of over 21.5 million ...

) *

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* René Touzet *

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In popular culture

Desi Arnaz Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban-born American actor, bandleader, and film and television producer. He played Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom '' I Love Lucy'', in which he c ...

sings the Spanish version in the 1941 film ''

Father Takes a Wife ''Father Takes a Wife'' is a 1941 American comedy film starring Gloria Swanson and Adolphe Menjou. Silent screen queen Gloria Swanson returned to films after a seven-year absence. Eight years later, Swanson staged another comeback in the classi ...

'' which starred

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. * 'Perfidia' is the title to a chapter of Nora Johnson's 1986 novel ''Tender Offer''. The song highlights the theme of the story's zenith and the actual song is described being played during a crucial scene. * 'Perfidia' is the title of a section of Peter Nichols's 2015 novel ''The Rocks''. Several references are made to the song. * ''Perfidia'' is the title of the acclaimedMason, Deborah
Time Bomb.
''The New York Times'', October 19, 1997. Accessed January 3, 2017. 1997 novel by

Judith Rossner Judith Rossner (March 31, 1935 – August 9, 2005) was an American novelist, best known for her acclaimed best sellers '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1975) and ''August'' (1983). Life and career, 1935–1973 Born in New York City, on March 31, 1 ...

. The song lyrics are quoted several times in the narrative. * ''Perfidia'' is the name of a

James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, s ...

novel (2014). * Perfidia is a song in the

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...

musical ''

Forever Plaid ''Forever Plaid'' is an Off-Broadway musical revue written by Stuart Ross, and first performed in New York in 1989 and now performed internationally. Overview The show is a revue of the close-harmony "guy groups" (''e.g.'' The Four Aces, The F ...

'' (1990). * The song has also been used as the theme music to the Canadian animated television series ''

George and Martha ''George and Martha'' is a series of children's books written and illustrated by James Marshall between 1972 and 1988. Each book in the series contains five short stories describing interactions between two hippos, George and Martha. The books i ...

''. * Perfidia was also included on the ''

Dexter Dexter may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Dexter, the main character of the American animated series '' Dexter's Laboratory'' that aired from 1996 to 2003 * Dexter, a fictional character in the British web series ''Diary of a Bad Man'' * Dext ...

'' soundtrack. *

's version of the song in English with a Spanish introduction was used in the 1992 film '' The Mambo Kings''. Ronstadt also recorded the song in Spanish for her 1992 album '' Frenesí''. At the 9th Lo Nuestro Awards, her version received a nomination for Tropical Song of the Year. * In ''

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

'', Perfidia plays while the characters Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund are ballroom dancing during the famous "flashback to Paris" sequence. *The song is heard in ''

Now, Voyager ''Now, Voyager'' is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty. Prouty ...

'', in a scene where Jerry ( Paul Henreid) and Charlotte (

Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her p ...

) are dancing. * Perfidia is also used in the first-season episode of the Netflix series ''

Sense8 ''Sense8'' (a play on the word '' sensate'' ) is an American science fiction drama streaming television series created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski for Netflix. The production companies behind ''Sense8'' included ...

'' * In Miguel Gomes' 2015 film ''

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'' different versions of the song are used over the opening credits of each of the film's three volumes, featuring those by Phyllis Dillon, Nat King Cole and Glenn Miller, as well as another by one of the film's performers Crista Alfaiate. * In the film ''

The Mask of Dimitrios ''The Mask of Dimitrios'' is a 1944 American film noir directed by Jean Negulesco and written by Frank Gruber, based on the 1939 novel of the same title written by Eric Ambler (in the United States, it was published as ''A Coffin for Dimitrios'' ...

'', a 1944 film directed by Jean Negulesco, Perfidia plays in a bar scene. *

Wong Kar-wai Wong Kar-wai (born 17 July 1958) is a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films are characterised by nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography involving bold, saturated colours. A pivotal figure ...

uses Xavier Cugat's version in his films '' Days of Being Wild'' and ''

2046 In contemporary history, the third millennium of the anno Domini or Common Era in the Gregorian calendar is the current millennium spanning the years 2001 to 3000 (21st to 30th centuries). Ongoing futures studies seek to understand what is l ...

''. Nat King Cole's version appears on the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

for ''

In the Mood for Love ''In the Mood for Love'' is a 2000 romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Wong Kar-wai. A co-production between Hong Kong and France, it portrays a man ( Tony Leung) and a woman ( Maggie Cheung) whose spouses have an affair to ...

''. *The song is featured in the 2019 film '' Live Twice, Love Once''.

References

{{Authority control Spanish-language songs 1939 songs Pop standards Benny Goodman songs The Four Aces songs The Ventures songs Songs written by Alberto Domínguez Trio Los Panchos songs Boleros Linda Ronstadt songs Luis Miguel songs