"The Garden of Eden" is a song written and composed by Dennise Haas Norwood, and first recorded by Joe Valino, which reached Number 12 on the ''Billboard'' chart in October 1956. Valino recorded the song at his second session for

Vik Records Vik Records was a subsidiary of RCA Victor Records established in April 1953. In the '' Billboard'' issue of the 11th of that month, it was announced that RCA was launching, namelessly, a new label that was the company's first to be distributed ind ...

, a subsidiary of

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

. "I knew it would be a hit, even as I was recording it," he told Wayne Jancik in ''The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders''. In the UK the most popular version was recorded by the singer

Frankie Vaughan Frankie Vaughan (born Frank Fruim Abelson; 3 February 1928 – 17 September 1999) was an English singer and actor who recorded more than 80 easy listening and traditional pop singles in his lifetime. He was known as "Mr. Moonlight" after his ...

, and gave him his first No. 1 hit in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in early 1957. The song first entered 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 ...

on 11 January 1957, spent four weeks at the top, and 13 weeks in the charts all together. Gary Miller also released his version in the UK around the same time, and it reached No. 14 on the chart. Other versions of the song have also been recorded by

Dick James Dick James (born Leon Isaac Vapnick; 12 December 1920 – 1 February 1986) was a British music publisher and singer. He and Brian Epstein established the Beatles' publisher Northern Songs. Later, with his son Stephen, James founded the DJM re ...

and Paul Raven.

References

1956 songs 1957 singles UK Singles Chart number-one singles {{1950s-single-stub