Released on EMI's Parlophone label in December 1959, the album was produced by George Martin with musical direction from Ron Goodwin and features a series of comic sketches showcasing Sellers' satirical humour and mimicry.

Sellers plays a variety of roles alongside contributions from the comic character actress Irene Handl and the singer Matt Monro (credited as "Fred Flange").

[3] Martin felt unable to compete against the American catalogues that his larger rivals His Master's Voice and Columbia released[2] and later explained "I knew I had to make a mark in some way... ...and the way I chose was to go into comedy, because no one was doing it.

[5] He was dispirited when the BBC radio comedy stars the Goons left Parlophone for Decca after their cover of "Unchained Melody" was blocked from release by the song's publishers,[5] but he achieved a breakthrough in 1957 when he worked with Peter Sellers again; Sellers' comic recording of "Any Old Iron", a music hall song given a satirical skiffle arrangement and sung in the voice of The Goon Show character Willium "Mate" Cobblers, reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart.

[4][6] Recognising that Sellers was capable of "a daydreaming form of humour which could be amusing and seductive without requiring the trigger of a live audience", Martin pitched a full album to EMI.

[4] David Hepworth has written that Martin and arranger Ron Goodwin "placed Sellers' inventions in a soundscape which meant that you kept playing the record long after any belly laughs had exhausted themselves".

[13] The song, arranged by Ron Goodwin in a big band approximation of Nelson Riddle’s work with Sinatra, was written by George Martin (under the pseudonym Graham Fisher) and Ken Hare.

[14][15][nb 2] Billed on the album as "Fred Flange" (a name conceived by Martin), Monro found the experience demoralising but his impersonation was close enough to prompt speculation that it was Sinatra himself.

[4] Written by comedy partners Denis Norden and Frank Muir, "So Little Time" lampoons the English impresario Larry Parnes and his stable of young rock & roll stars including Marty Wilde and Billy Fury.

[18] Parnes is caricatured as Major Rafe Ralph, a horse dealer turned pop manager who lives with his protégés Lenny Bronze, Clint Thigh, Matt Lust and Twit Conway in a luxury Mayfair flat.

[25] Sellers' rendition of "My Old Dutch", a music hall song published in 1892 and written by Albert Chevalier and Charles Ingle, is delivered with mock-sentimentality and deliberately over-the-top emotion.

[29] Bedham is a parody of the Irish playwright Brendan Behan, who generated significant publicity for his play The Quare Fellow in June 1956 when he made a drunken appearance on BBC Television programme Panorama.

[28] Songs for Swingin' Sellers was released on 4 December 1959 in a sleeve depicting "the booted and spurred feet of a man, presumably the artist, hanging from a tree above one of those record players that the adventurous might take on a picnic".

[7] The artwork appears in Barry Miles, Grant Scott and Johnny Morgan's book The Greatest Album Covers of All Time, in which it is speculated that the shot of a hanged man may have been inspired by "Mort Sahl's brand of 'sick humour'".

[41] As part of the promotion for the album, Parlophone played upon the identity of Fred Flange (Matt Monro), whose Frank Sinatra impersonation on "You Keep Me Swingin'" received significant attention in the music press.

[1] Reg Exton of London's Norwood News praised the album as "real comedy, sometimes satirical, but never dull" and considered "So Little Time" the highlight, while David Langdon of the Sunday Pictorial described it as "one of the funniest records ever".

[47][48] Reviewing Songs for Swingin' Sellers in 1961, Mervyn Douglas of Record Mail declared "what a performer this man is – sheer genius, ranging from biting comedy to moments of intense pathos.

[50] Writing in 2002, Simon Louvich of the Guardian considered Songs for Swingin' Sellers to contain "some of the master’s most primal acts",[27] while Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Pitchfork has described the album as "perhaps the best showcase for George Martin's nascent skills".