On a Little Street in Singapore
original song written and composed by Peter DeRose and Billy Hill
"On a Little Street in Singapore" is a jazz song written by Peter DeRose and Billy Hill. It had some measure of popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, marked by a number of high-profile performances. Artists to cover the song included Frank Sinatra with Harry James, Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond, Glenn Miller, Bert Kaempfert, Jimmy Dorsey and most recently Bob Dylan. Manhattan Transfer covered it again in 1978; the French-singing Belgian group Lou and the Hollywood Bananas, in a french adaptation (Dans les petites rues de Singapour), around 1983.
The music writer Will Friedwald places the song in a "long list of intercultural, interracial romances-that-can-never-be" likening the theme of the song to the "tragic mulatto syndrome" as identified by the film critic Donald Bogle. Friedwald categorises the song in this context with other Orientalist compositions such as "Poor Butterfly" and "Japanese Mammy".
Patrick Burke discussed Charlie Shavers' May 1940 recording of the song in his 2008 book Come In and Hear the Truth: Jazz and Race on 52nd Street writing that Shavers "evokes an exotic Orientalist atmosphere through the combination of an unusual melodic mode and a repeated figure in the bass and drums".
The Glenn Miller Orchestra released "On a Little Street in Singapore" with a vocal by Ray Eberle in May 1944. Anticipating the end of the Second World War, Billboard wrote that Miller would be "the hottest thing in band fronting" and described the song as "good, if a little dated" but concluded that "with tune and Miller sizzling what more can be desired?".
Reviewing Bob Dylan's album Fallen Angels which included the song, Michael Hann wrote in The Guardian that "On a Little Street in Singapore" was a "throwaway number" whose "strength is all in the melody" and lacked the "romantic profundity" of the other songs on the album.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “On a Little Street in Singapore” as original song written and composed by Peter DeRose and Billy Hill. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as original song written and composed by Peter DeRose and Billy Hill. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7091240. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 1983, 1940 and 2008.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “On a Little Street in Singapore” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.