DESCRIPTION:
"Mona Lisa" is a popular song written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the Paramount Pictures film Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950). The title and lyrics refer to the renaissance portrait Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1950.

Musical arrangement was handled by Nelson Riddle and the orchestral backing was played by Les Baxter and his Orchestra. The recording was originally the B-side of "The Greatest Inventor Of Them All." In an American Songwriter magazine interview, Jay Livingston recalled that the original advertisements for the record did not even mention "Mona Lisa;" only upon returning home from a publicity junket of numerous radio programs did the song become a hit.

The soundtrack version by Nat King Cole spent eight weeks at number one in the Billboard singles chart in 1950. Cole's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992. Cole described this song as one of his favorites among his recordings.

Various artists, including Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Art Lund, Shakin' Stevens, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, the Neville Brothers, and Nat King Cole's daughter Natalie Cole, have released cover versions of this song. Bruddah Iz (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole) also covered the song on the album Alone in IZ World. Harry Connick, Jr. included the song on his 2009 album, Your Songs.

An uncredited version of Mona Lisa plays in the background of one scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954). In 1986, the song was used as the theme to the British film Mona Lisa. The song was used in the wedding scene of the NBC mini-series, Witness to the Mob, in 1998.

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa
Men have named you
You're so like the lady with the mystic smile
Is it only cause you're lonely
They have blamed you
For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile

Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there, and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art

[Instrumental Interlude]

Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there, and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa
Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa