If you enjoy Steyn's Song of the Week at SteynOnline and on Serenade Radio, please note that there will be a live stage edition during the 2025 Mark Steyn Cruise - along with many other favourite features from SteynOnline and The Mark Steyn Show. More details here.
~For those who missed today's Serenade Radio edition of our Song of the Week, here's a chance to catch up. It's the tale of a composer who wrote three Oscar-winners and many more nominees - yet always wanted to be back in New York working on a Broadway show: Mark celebrates Harry Warren, with some help from (among many others) Bing and Beyoncé.
Click above to listen.
Anita, the wife of Steyn's longtime producer Brian Savin, said she thought this was one of the best Song of the Week episodes - and, after thinking it over, Brian and Mark were inclined to agree.
~This airing of our Serenade Radio Song of the Week is a special presentation of The Mark Steyn Club. Thank you for your kind responses to this series. Our last selection, the eerie "Lilac Wine", prompted this response from Linda Powers, a Kansas member of The Mark Steyn Club:
Thanks, Mark, again for a wonderful show. I wasn't familiar with 'Lilac Wine', but I'm a fan now. This presentation is one of my favorites for the artists and your discussion of them. Last week's 'The Way You Look Tonight' was splendid, but Lilac is just as rich for different reasons.
Olga, an Arizona Steyn Clubber, was a little more familiar with the song:
What a wistful trip down Memory Lane!
The only version of Lilac Wine I'd ever known was the Jeff Buckley one, from back in the late 90s/early 2000s, when the young Hollywood druggie set became positively obsessed with it & played it in a loop, day & night.
How exciting to learn that the song is not a fevered heroin dream, but has a rich & varied history.
Song of the Week, as well as Steyn on the Town, are like music school I didn't have!
One more from Alison, an English Steyn Clubber:
Fascinating. It is incredible that no one knows anything more about James Shelton. There is no birth or death date on Wikipedia or anything about him at all. How weird. Maybe he had 'invented himself' and he was someone else completely? Maybe he was dead by the time the copyright earnings came through? He 'got' 'atmosphere' and conveyed it.
I recall that I was a fan of Elkie Brooks, now aged 79, in her TV days. It is great to learn about what happened to her and beautiful to hear talented Sylvia Sims for the first time, too. I really love 'I am the Girl' both the lyrics and music.
Thank you all. We do enjoy your comments on the show. Steyn Club members are welcome to respond to this week's show below. Alternatively, anybody can leave comments over at Serenade Radio, where they love hearing from listeners.
Steyn's Song of the Week airs thrice weekly on Serenade Radio in the UK, one or other of which broadcasts is certain to be convenient for whichever part of the world you're in:
5.30pm Sunday London (12.30pm New York)
5.30am Monday London (4.30pm Sydney)
9pm Thursday London (1pm Vancouver)
Whichever you prefer, you can listen from anywhere on the planet right here.
