Yes, yes…I know the song "Artificial Flowers" is from the 1959 Broadway musical, Tenderloin, which had a book by George Abbott and Jerome Weidman, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock. The same folks had done the acclaimed show Fiorello the previous year and this show, which was about a crusading clergyman trying to clean up a red-light district in Manhattan, had some of the same elements. Bock and Harnick later supplied the tunes for Fiddler on the Roof, The Rothchilds, She Loves Me, The Apple Tree and other shows.
I still think it's an awfully odd choice for Bobby Darin to have performed the way he performed it.
Here's the song performed closer to the way its composers intended. The singer is New York stage performer Ciro Barbaro…