You Belong to My Heart
original film song written and composed by Agustín Lara; from the 1941 movie "Melodies of America"

"You Belong to My Heart" is the name of an English-language version of the Mexican Bolero song "Solamente una vez" ("Only Once" in English). This song was composed by Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara and originally performed by singer Ana María González and tenor José Mojica in the 1941 film Melodías de América.
After that, the original Spanish-language version was very popular in Mexico and Cuba as well as being recorded by many of the greatest Bolero interpreters such as Los Panchos in 1951.
Covers of Solamente una vez
"Solamente una vez" has been performed by many artists including
Anacani,
Natalie Cole,
Sara Montiel,
Daniel Rodríguez,
Quartetto Gelato,
Arielle Dombasle,
Benny Moré,
Ignacio Piñeiro,
Pedro Vargas,
Julio Iglesias,
Roberto Carlos,
Andrea Bocelli,
Chucho Valdés,
Plácido Domingo,
Nat King Cole,
Marty Robbins,
Lucho Gatica,
Guadalupe Pineda,
Roland Shaw & His Orchestra,
Luis Miguel,
and Cliff Richard and the Shadows.
The Three Caballeros
"Solamente una vez", retitled "You Belong to My Heart", was featured in the Disney film The Three Caballeros with English lyrics written by Ray Gilbert and sung by Dora Luz.
Gilbert's lyrics bear no similarity to Lara's original Spanish language lyrics.
This song is on the orange disc of Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic.
Covers of You Belong to My Heart
Bing Crosby and the Xavier Cugat orchestra recorded a version of the song on February 11, 1945 for Decca Records as catalog number 23413. It first reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on May 24, 1945, and lasted 9 weeks on the chart, peaking at #4.
The Charlie Spivak orchestra released a version by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-1663.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “You Belong to My Heart” is original film song written and composed by Agustín Lara; from the 1941 movie "Melodies of America". The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Belong, Heart and original, not as a finished interpretation.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8056944. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1951, 1945 and 1663.
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This entry incorporates text from “You Belong to My Heart” 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.