"The Sheik of Araby" is a 1921 Tin Pan Alley song with music by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Harry B. Smith and Francis Wheeler. It was written in response to the popularity of the Rudolph Valentino film The Sheik. Snyder said the original title was "The Rose of Araby" and that he changed it after seeing Valentino's posters. The song was a hit, and a verse appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925). It is classed as jazz.
The earliest known recording is an instrumental by Joseph Knecht's Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra, made in October 1921 and issued on Grey Gull in 1922. Other early versions are by Ray Miller and the Club Royal Orchestra (1922), Peter Dawson (1922, possibly the oldest vocal recording) and Eddie Cantor, who sang it in the revue Make It Snappy (1922). Later recordings include Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli (1937), Don Albert's band (1936, with the chant "with no pants on"), Fats Waller (1938), Jack Teagarden (1939), Oscar Peterson (1945), Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino (both 1960), the Everly Brothers (1961) and the Beatles (1962 Decca audition). It has also been used in films and cartoons, including Tin Pan Alley (1940), Heaven Can Wait (1943) and Allied (2016).
