"Mammy Blue" is an anglicization of "Mamy Blue", a song written in French by songwriter Hubert Giraud. A version of the song with the original French lyrics was recorded by Nicoletta in 1970 and reached #4 on the French charts.
Pop-Tops (also called Los Pop Tops) formed in Madrid, Spain, in 1967; their lead singer, Phil Trim, was from Trinidad and Tobago. They had a #1 hit in Spain in 1968 with "Oh Lord, Why Lord", which was set to the melody of Pachelbel's "Canon in D".
Trim wrote the English-language lyrics to "Mammy Blue"; the Pop-Tops version reached #1 in France, Holland, Norway, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland but only made it to #35 in the UK and #57 on the Billboard Hot 100. It retains the moody tone of the original; I could easily see it appearing on a soundtrack of a gloomy European film set between the wars. After it, the Pop-Tops released further singles into the mid-1970s without success.
Another version of "Mammy Blue", by French singer Joël Daydé, was released at about the same time; in his version, he sounds a bit like Joe Cocker while backed by a Eurodance beat. His version reached the top 10 in several European countries, often at the same time as the Pop-Tops version. Roger Whittaker also recorded versions of this song in both English and French; I don't particularly like his voice but you have to give him credit for being bilingual.
Created February 7, 2026.