《Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)》是希區考克1956年所執導《擒兇記》（The Man Who Knew Too Much）電影主題曲，得到1956年奧斯卡金像獎的最佳原創歌曲獎。《擒凶記》至今仍是希區考克最著名的作品之一。由詹姆斯·史都華、桃樂絲·黛主演。

這部影片是重拍希區考克在1934年的同名電影，也是他惟一一部重製自己的作品。希區考克認為1956年版本比1934年版本還要更好，他認為1934年版本是「有天份的業餘者」的作品，1956年版本才是真正「專業」的作品。事實上，若再論及男女主角的名望及得獎紀錄，這部重拍的《擒凶記》，其知名度與評價都高於原作。
故事內容述說一對醫師及歌唱家夫婦，帶著兒子去摩洛哥，僅是出於單純的旅遊目的，主角夫婦卻意外捲入國際諜報組織活動，得知英國一位重要的政治家（似影射溫斯頓·邱吉爾）即將被某國策劃暗殺。陰謀暗殺的特務為堵主角夫婦之口，將他們的兒子綁架。主角夫婦因此面臨兒子存亡未卜，政治危機重大，不敢驚動警方，必須自救及救人的困境……

“Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”, first published in 1956, is a popular song written by the Jay Livingston and Ray Evans songwriting team. The song was introduced in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring Doris Day and James Stewart in the lead roles.   Day’s recording of the song for Columbia Records (catalog number 40704) made it to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in the UK Singles Chart. From 1968 to 1973, it was the theme song for the situation comedy The Doris Day Show, becoming her signature song. The three verses of the song progress through the life of the narrator – from childhood, to young adulthood and falling in love, to parenthood – and each asks “What will I be?” or “What lies ahead?” The chorus repeats the answer: “What will be will be.” It reached the Billboard magazine charts in July 1956.

The song received the 1956 Academy Award for Best Original Song with the alternative title “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)”. It was the third Oscar in this category for Livingston and Evans, who previously won in 1948 and 1950. The title sequence of the Hitchcock film gives the song title as Whatever Will Be. It was a #1 hit in Australia for pop singer Normie Rowe in September 1965.

The song is sometimes confused with the song Che sarà, released by José Feliciano, first in Italian in 1971, then in Spanish as Qué Será, but the two songs have nothing in common except the similarity of their titles and the general theme of concern about the future. (Che sarà was written by two Italians, Jimmy Fontana (born Enrico Sbriccoli) and Franco Migliacci and the title is more grammatically correct than is Que Sera, Sera). The song became so popular throughout the world that speakers of many languages adopted its title phrase, “Que será, será”, into their speech, or at least came to recognize it and understand its meaning separately from the music. In spite of the fact that the phrase is not grammatical in any language, the song inspired a sense of ownership in many speakers of different Romance languages, such that they came to feel that the phrase was an altered form of their own respective native languages.

The popularity of the song has led to curiosity about the origins of the saying and the identity of its language. The answer is not simple. It is a centuries-old saying used mainly by English-speaking people. In linguistic terms, “Que será, será” – in the form in which Livingston and Evans adopted it – is a hybrid expression made by superimposing Spanish words on English syntax (somewhat in the way that “Long time no see” consists of English words superimposed on Chinese syntax).

Evans and Livingston had some knowledge of Spanish, and early in their career they worked together as musicians on cruise ships to the Caribbean and South America. Composer Jay Livingston had seen the 1954 Hollywood film The Barefoot Contessa, in which a fictional Italian family has the motto “Che sarà sarà” (Italian words superimposed on English syntax) carved in stone at their ancestral castle. He immediately wrote it down as a possible song title, and he and lyricist Ray Evans later gave it a Spanish spelling “because there are so many Spanish-speaking people in the world”.

Most Romance languages are like English in using a single word for the interrogative what (as in the question “What will it be?”): Spanish qué, Italian che, etc. But, for the “free relative” (non-interrogative) what (as in the assertion “What will be, will be”), unlike English, the Romance languages generally call for a two-word expression: Spanish lo que, Italian quello che, etc. (literally, “that which”).

One of the earliest documentations of the saying records it as being chosen by an English aristocrat of the 16th century, as his family’s heraldic motto. His successors—Earls and, later, Dukes of Bedford—continued the use of the motto. Soon after its adoption as a heraldic motto, it appeared in Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus, whose text contains a line with the archaic Italian spelling “Che sera, sera / What will be, shall be”). From then until the 1950s, the saying appeared in print repeatedly, though not frequently, with both spellings (“Che” and “Que”), first as a motto and later in the speech of fictional characters as a spontaneous expression of a fatalistic attitude, always in an English-speaking context. The saying has virtually no history in Spain or Italy prior to Doris Day’s recording of the song.

By Doris Day

Lyrics