Beyond the Sea

"Beyond the Sea" is a 1946 contemporary pop song with music taken from the song "La Mer" by Charles Trenet and lyrics by Jack Lawrence.

Trenet had composed "La Mer" (which means "The Sea") with French lyrics totally different and unrelated to the English language version that Lawrence composed. Trenet's French version was an homage and ode to the changing moods of the sea, while Lawrence, by just adding one word "Beyond" to the title, gave him the start whereby he made the song into one of a lover pining for a lost love.

It has been recorded by many artists, including Benny Goodman, Mantovani, Roger Williams and Gisele MacKenzie, but Bobby Darin's version released in 1959 is the best known by many, reaching #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song reached the top 40 twice prior to the Darin version (Goodman-1948, Williams-1955).

Performances by Darin

Darin's recording has been used in many films, TV shows and video games, including Apollo 13, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Diner, Goodfellas, Lost, Black Rain, The X-Files, The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine and BioShock. The song was also played in a 2005 commercial for Carnival Cruise Lines. A portion of Bobby Darin's recording was played during the splashdown and post-recovery of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 in the first episode of the 1998 HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon.

Performances as Darin

Kevin Spacey sang the song in the movie Beyond the Sea, a biopic about Bobby Darin,
in a "fantasy" sequence leading up to his marriage to Sandra Dee. Similarly, on the television series American Dreams, Duncan Sheik performed the song while playing the role of Bobby Darin.