[1] In 1940 American songwriter Jack Lawrence added lyrics with Coates' approval; the resulting song, "Sleepy Lagoon", became a popular-music standard of the 1940s.

Michael Jameson observed that the piece is "elegantly orchestrated" with "a shapely theme for violins presented in the salon-esque genre entirely characteristic of British light music in the 1920s and '30s".

[3] In early 1940, American songwriter Jack Lawrence came across the piano solo version of By the Sleepy Lagoon and wrote a song lyric, then took it to Chappell, the publisher of Coates's original melody.

The song made the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960, in a version by the Platters, found originally on the flipside of the 1960 top ten "Harbor Lights".

[8][9] At the height of the Coates-Lawrence song's popularity in 1942, a minor reservoir near Los Angeles was christened the "Sleepy Lagoon" by local youths.

[10] In 1977, "Sleepy Lagoon" made a notable appearance in the famous Oscar-winning motion picture Annie Hall directed by Woody Allen.