1956 Ballad That Won the Oscar for 'Best Original Song' 70 Years Ago Was Recorded in One Take
Even though it's been 70 years since it first came out, most people are familiar with Doris Day's signature song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)." But music lovers who don't know the tune's history might be surprised to learn that the breezy, cheerful track was originally on the soundtrack for a suspenseful thriller...and it even won an Academy Award.
Penned by successful songwriting partners Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, Day sang "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" in Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 remake of his 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much. The song serves a crucial purpose in the movie: Day plays a retired singer who gets mixed up in an assassination plot along with her husband (James Stewart) and little boy; at one point, Day uses the song to rescue her son from an attempted kidnapping.
As Livingston explained years later, Hitchcock gave him a set of very specific parameters to work with.
"We got a call from Alfred Hitchcock," Livingston told Paul Zollo in an interview featured in the book Songwriters on Songwriting.
"And he told us that he had Doris Day in his picture, whom he didn't want," Livingston continued. "But MCA, the agency, was so powerful that they said if he wanted Jimmy Stewart he would also have to take Doris Day and Livingston and Evans. It was the only time an agent got us a job that I can remember. Hitchcock said that since Doris Day was a singer, they needed a song for her. He said, 'I can tell you what it should be about. She sings it to a boy. It should have a foreign title because Jimmy Stewart is a roving ambassador and he goes all over the world.'"
"Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" was a major success both commercially and critically. Not only did it win the Oscar for Best Original Song, but it also peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the U.K. Singles Chart.
Doris Day didn't originally want to record 'Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)'
Even though it would go on to become her signature song, Day didn't even want to record "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" in the first place, according to Livingston, because she thought it sounded too much like a children's tune.
"She didn't want to record it but the studio pressured her," Livingston said. "She did it in one take and said, 'That's the last you're going to hear of this song.'"
Day couldn't have been more wrong about that one. Not only did she sing the song again in the movie Please Don't Eat the Daisies, but she even used it as a theme song for her sitcomThe Doris Day Show.
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This story was originally published May 11, 2026 at 5:34 PM.