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"Night and Day" is a popular song by Cole Porter that was written for the 1932 musical Gay Divorce. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of musicians.
Fred Astaire introduced "Night and Day" on stage. His studio recording of the song with the Leo Reisman orchestra was released on Victor Records on January 13, 1933, and it became a No. 1 hit, topping the charts of the day for ten weeks. In December, it beat "The Last Round-Up" by George Olsen (nine weeks) and "Stormy Weather" by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler (eight weeks) to become the Number 1 record for the year 1933. Astaire performed it again in the 1934 film version of the show, renamed The Gay Divorcee, and it became one of his signature songs.
There are several accounts about the song's origin. One mentions that Porter was inspired by an Islamic prayer when he visited Morocco. Another account says he was inspired by the Moorish architecture of the Alcazar Hotel in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Others mention that he was inspired by a Mosaic of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, he had been visiting during a trip of his honeymoon in Italy.
The song was so associated with Porter that when Hollywood filmed his life story in 1946, the movie was entitled Night and Day.
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