"Buttons and Bows" is a popular song with music written by Jay Livingston and lyrics by Ray Evans. The song was published on February 25, 1948 by Famous Music Corp., New York. The song was written for and appeared in the Bob Hope and Jane Russell film The Paleface and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was originally written with a Native American theme, but was changed when the director said that would not work in the movie. It was a vocal selection on many radio programs in late 1948. It was reprised in the sequel, Son of Paleface, by Roy Rogers, Jane Russell and Bob Hope. In 2004 it finished #87 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of the top tunes in American cinema. Though they began writing together in 1937, Livingston and Evans did not hit the top until 1946, when they set the music publishing business on fire with "To Each His Own," which reached number one on the Billboard charts for three different artists, and occupied the top five positions on the "Most Played On the Air" chart for four different weeks. "Buttons and Bows" (1947) was their next multi-million seller, with four artists reaching the top ten in 1948, and won the Academy Award for Best Song. They finished off the decade with 1949's "Mona Lisa", which was a chart hit for seven popular and two country artists in 1950, sold a million for Nat King Cole, and won the pair another Best Song Oscar. The most popular version of the song was recorded by Dinah Shore on November 30, 1947, but wasn't released until the following year. It reached the number one spot in November 1948, which it held for ten weeks, into January 1949. It beat out Peggy Lee's "Manana" (number one for nine weeks) for the number one record of 1948. Charting versions of the song were also recorded by The Dinning Sisters, Betty Rhodes, Evelyn Knight, and Betty Garrett the same year. Gene Autry recorded his version for Columbia in December 1947, reaching #6 on both the Best Selling Retail Folk Records and the Most Played Juke Box Folk Records charts, and #17 on the Pop chart.

Recording and chart history

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