The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #174661 Message #4235499
Posted By: Reinhard
07-Feb-26 - 02:09 PM
Thread Name: ADD: The White Rose of Athens by Nana Mouskouri
Subject: RE: The White Rose of Athens by Nana Mouskou
Robert, the name was probably truncated due to the limited length of the input field.
This is a DeepL translation of parts of the Weiße Rosen aus Athen article from the German Wikipedia:
Weiße Rosen aus Athen is a pop song that became a number one hit in Germany in 1961. The song was composed by Manos Hadjidakis and written by Hans Bradtke.
In June 1961, Wolfgang Müller-Sehn's documentary film Traumland der Sehnsucht (Land of Dreams and Longing) was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. The leading actress in the film, which won the Silver Bear, was the Greek singer Nana Mouskouri. She sang several songs composed by her compatriot Manos Hadjidakis, including the folk song adaptation San Sfyrixis Tris Fores (If You Whistle Three Times). The record company Fontana Records had a German-language version of this song produced.
Completely different from the original, lyricist Hans Bradtke created a song of longing: “Weiße Rosen aus Athen, sagen dir, komm recht bald wieder, sagen dir auf Wiedersehn.” The German lyrics were also sung by Nana Mouskouri, who, although already a star in Greece, was still relatively unknown to German audiences. Fontana produced the song Weiße Rosen aus Athen in July 1961 at the Hansa recording studio in Berlin's Hotel Esplanade and released it that same month on single No. 261 264.
In the USA, the record company Riverside released the German original in 1962 under the English title The White Rose of Athens. The songwriting team Norman Newell / Archie Bleyer also adopted this title for an English version of the lyrics. The US record company Cadence was the first to produce this version in February 1962 with the girl group The Chordettes. This version was also released in numerous other countries by various record companies. In the USA, there was also an instrumental version under the same title with the David Carroll Orchestra. The Newell/Bleyer lyrics version was also released by Fontana in the UK in March 1962 with Nana Mouskouri. This version was also distributed worldwide.