"As Time Goes By" is a song written by Herman Hupfeld for the 1931 Broadway musical, Everybody's Welcome. In the original show it was sung by Frances Williams. It was recorded that year by several artists, including Rudy Vallee.
The song was re-introduced in 1942 in the film Casablanca, sung by Dooley Wilson. Wilson never released a single of the song because of a musicians' strike at the time of the film's release — but a re-issue of Rudy Vallee's 1931 recording became a major seller in 1942.
The song was voted #2 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs special, commemorating the best songs in film.
The song was also played by Clint Eastwood in the movie In the Line of Fire.
The song's famous opening line - "You must remember this..." - is actually the start of the fourth verse. As originally written and performed, there are three preceding verses. However, Dooley Wilson did not sing them in Casablanca and most subsequent versions have similarly omitted them, leading them to have become virtually unknown to most listeners.The song has been performed by several artists, including Billie Holiday, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Harry Nilsson, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Tony Bennett, Jane Monheit, Gal Costa, Bryan Ferry, Sal Viviano, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Mathis.