Copacabana (song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
"Copacabana (At the Copa)"
"Copacabana (At the Copa)" cover
Single by Barry Manilow
from the album Even Now
B-side A Linda Song
Released 1978
Genre Disco
Length 4:08
Label Arista Records
Writer Jack Feldman/Barry Manilow/Bruce Sussman
Producer Ron Dante, Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow singles chronology
"Even Now"
(1978)
"Copacabana"
(1978)
"Ready To Take A Chance Again"
(1978)

Copacabana is a 1978 disco song, sung by Barry Manilow, and written by Jack Feldman, Barry Manilow, and Bruce Sussman. It is also known as At the Copa after the first few words of the refrain. It debuted on Billboard magazine's Top 40 chart on July 7, 1978, and peaked at #8. It peaked at #42 in the UK the same year 1978. A remixed version of the song peaked at #22 in 1993. The record earned for Manilow his first (and only, to date) Grammy Award in February 1979.

The song's title refers to the famous New York City nightclub, the Copacabana night club. As per the lyrics "... at the Copa, Copacabana, hottest spot north of Havana ...", and tells the story of Lola, a showgirl, and her lover Tony, a bartender at the club.

The recording was used as incidental music in the 1978 movie Foul Play, which starred Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn, and has been featured in over a dozen other films. The single version clocks in at 4:08, the Extended Disco version is titled "Copacabana (At the Copa)(Disco)" and is 5:46, found on Manilow's first Greatest Hits double album.

In 1985, Manilow and his collaborators Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman expanded the song into a full length, made-for-television film musical, writing many additional songs and expanding the plot suggested by the song. This was the first original musical written for television since Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella in 1957. This film version was then further expanded by Manilow, Feldman, and Sussman into a full-length, two-act stage musical that ran at the Prince of Wales Theatre on London's West End for two years prior to a lengthy tour of the UK. An American production was later mounted that toured the US for over a year. Over 200 productions of the show have since been mounted worldwide.

  • A parody cover version by the name of Star Wars Cantina was performed by Mark Jonathan Davis (often confused with Weird Al Yankovic).
  • A parody cover version by the name of His Name Is Lancelot was performed in the 2005 musical Spamalot.
  • Liza Minnelli performed and danced to the song on The Muppet Show.
  • A Jamaican steel drum band that only knew how to play Copacabana made a number of appearances on The Super Dave Osborne Show, always replacing the never seen "Super Dave Band", who were always at a bar mitzvah on their scheduled day to appear on the show.
  • Shirley Bassey also covered the song in 1979, on the double A-side single "This Is My Life".
  • John Pinette makes a brief appearance in the movie Duets in order to sing a cover of this song as part of a karaoke competition.
  • French singer Amanda Lear recorded an English-French language cover version of the song in 2005.
  • A parody cover version by the name of Kopa koopavond was performed by Annie de Rooy a fictional female character portrayed by male Dutch comedian Paul de Leeuw. Koopavond means "late night shopping" in Dutch.
  • In 1999 the German DJ Hell released remixes by Ian Pooley, Abe Duque, Phats & Small, and himself.


Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.