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For the popular video game character from the Punch-Out!! series, see Mr. Sandman (Punch-Out). For the Metallica song, see Enter Sandman.

"Mr. Sandman" is a popular song written by Pat Ballard and published in 1954. The song's lyrics convey a request of "Mr. Sandman" that he "bring me a dream", the word "dream" evidently referring to a significant other despite the traditional association of the folkloric figure with literal dreams. The pronoun used to refer to the desired "dream" is often changed depending on the gender of the singer or group performing the song. Some time later, Ballard also rewrote the lyrics for Christmas use as "Mr. Santa", though this version is rarely heard today.

The recorded version by The Chordettes reached #1 on the Billboard United States charts and #11 on the United Kingdom charts in 1954. The Four Aces recorded a version that charted even higher in the UK, reaching #9. That same year, a version by Max Bygraves reached #16 on the UK charts. On the Cash Box magazine charts in the US, where all versions were combined, the song also reached #1.

The song has an interesting music theoretical aspect, as the chord progression follows the circle of fifths for 6 chords in a row in the chorus.

In the third and final verse, when the the Chordettes sing "Mr. Sandman", they are answered by a "Yes", from Archie Bleyer. The "Yes" was also done in the Chipmunk's version of the song, once by David Seville, and the other by Alvin, both in the third and final verse.

Liberace's name is used in the third verse, when the Chordette's ask for a young man with wavy hair like Liberace.

Chet Atkins covered this song for his first hit.

The song was recorded by Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt in 1978, originally for a planned trio album that never was completed, though it was eventually included on Harris's Evangeline album in 1981. The song was released as a single, but neither Parton's nor Ronstadt's record companies would allow their artists' vocals on the single, so Harris rerecorded it, singing all three parts herself. The Harris single reached the U.S. country top ten and crossed over to the U.S. pop top forty in early 1981.

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• The song was also popularly featured in the openings of Halloween II and Halloween: H20 films, as well as in Philadelphia and Uncle Buck.

• "Mr. Sandman" is often featured in films set in the 1950s and early 1960s, including Grease 2, The Long Walk Home and Cry-Baby, where it was sung Amy Locane. Both Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II used the Four Aces version of the song to evoke the Hill Valley of 1955.

• The videogame Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse also features this song performed by Oranger when the player reaches the game's main menu (one of the few songs that are randomly played).

• "Mr. Sandman" was also featured in one episode of The Golden Girls. Dorothy (Bea Arthur), Rose (Betty White) and Blanche (Rue McClanahan) sing the song to an infant whom they are baby-sitting, to get the child to sleep. Before long, the ladies are having so much fun singing the song that they forget all about the baby and start dancing while they sing. Then Sophia (Estelle Getty) enters the room, the singing and dancing abruptly stops, and Sophia opines, "Boy, you guys really stink."

• A macabre rendition is performed in the movie 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, in which the titular decapitated heads sing the song, albeit with slightly altered lyrics, to hitman Tommy Spinelli (Pesci).

• "Mr Sandman" is featured as one of the songs sung by Homer's band "The Be-Sharps" in the first episode of The Simpsons' fifth season entitled "Homer's Barbershop Quartet."

• Also in The Blunder Years, Homer, Lenny and Carl sing it in a flashback sequence before Homer finds a corpse at the age of 12.

• In an episode of Will & Grace, Jack and Karen, while locked in Rosario's bedroom, sing the song to try and get themselves to fall asleep.

• In the Charmed episode Sand Francisco Dreamin' the song was featured during the opening credits.

• In an episode of Friday Night Lights (TV series), Matt Saracen sang this song to lure his grandmother, who had dementia, out of the closet. It was the song of hers and her husband, who had died 6 years earlier, but she saw her grandson as her husband as he was singing the song.

In the third issue of Vertigo's comic book series The Sandman, the song is one of many dream themed tunes which seem to follow John Constantine were ever he goes (playing out of ever radio or juke box he passes) on the day that Morpheus (aka, the Sandman referenced by the book's title) comes to him seeking his lost bag of magical dreaming sand. Constantine later sings part of the song to him self as he walks off into the night in the book's closing panels.

• The Andrews Sisters
• Chordettes
• Oranger
• Acoustic Guitar Summit
• Jamey Aebersold
• Chet Atkins
• Baldwin and the Whiffles
• Banjomania
• Barbershop Quartet
• Chuck Berry
• Roberto Carlos
• Blind Guardian
• Bess Bonnier
• Buckingham Banjos
• Max Bygraves
• Mocedades
• Chipmunks
• Jim Coleman
• The Crusaders
• Diana Ross & The Supremes
• Rick Eldridge
• The Four Aces
• Marvin Gaye
• Golden Hammond
• Steve Grossman
• Mary Cleere Haran
• Bob Harris
• Emmylou Harris
• Ondrej Havelka
• Homer Haynes
• Al Hirt
• Bob Kames
• London Starlight Orchestra
• Magic Organ
• Jose Melis
• The Mills Brothers
• Mocedades
• Vaughn Monroe
• Anita O'Day
• Les Paul and Mary Ford
• The Pfister Sisters
• Dewey Redman
• Linda Ronstadt
• Mary Stahl
• Gob
• Linda McCartney
• The Puppini Sisters
• Blind Guardian

• Song lyric
• Paul Sandman (A Real Mr. Sandman)