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.
~If you missed Mark's Song of the Week earlier today on Serenade Radio, here's a chance to hear its world premiere at SteynOnline. In a brand new episode, Mark discusses a song celebrating its bicentennial this Christmas - at least in its best known form. But, for aficionados of the US Civil War, Irish republicanism, global Marxism, the beauties of Lake Superior and the Gulf of Mexico and the particular pleasures of a German carpenter's apprentice, Steyn also takes in those manifestations - with help from Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole and Taylor Swift.
Click above to listen.
~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. Last week's seasonal selection, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", prompted this reaction from Teresa, a California member of The Mark Steyn Club:
Very interesting. Love the version you ended with! ?
That would be our version bilingue by Mark's dear friends Dorothée Berryman and Monique Fauteux with the Steyn Show Band and a cameo appearance by Mark himself as the père Noël. Monique will be back at SteynOnline in just over a week for our Christmas observances. Keith Farrell, an English Steyn Clubber, also enjoyed our finale:
Love this episode. The anticipated background info doesn't disappoint and ably portrays this heartwarming AND heartbreaking story. The icing on the cake is the en français finale.
Papa Doc, possibly not his real name, defends Clement Clarke Moore, from the charge of impure rhyming:
Mark, I enjoyed this episode, but wish to make a comment about the original Clement C. Moore poem. Originally published in the newspaper The Troy Sentinel in 1823. I have a book called The Children's Book copyrighted in 1887 which published many stories and poems for children selected by Horace E. Scudder and published by Houghton Mifflin and The Riverside Press Cambridge. In it is the original poem by Moore. The reindeers' names at that time included Dunder and Blixen. Later evolved to Donder and Blixen, and still later to Donner and Blitzen.
Why? Who knows? Blixen at least rhymes perfectly with Vixen. Not a big deal, but I know you like perfect rhymes and also you love little details, so I thought I'd let everyone know. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Sam Williamson, a First Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:
I happened to be in a Christmas Store yesterday. Walking through the door was like slipping through a time portal. The music was old and nostalgic. It was radio music! Regarding Rudolph, that song has an instant appeal to children. Find me a child who has not been laughed or pointed at because of a facial irregularity. But poor Rudolph who starts out rather downtrodden, has a feature, that his boss recognizes as most valuable one foggy Christmas eve. Children don't need to know about air navigation systems, ground based radar or TCAS. Suffice it to say that a red-nosed reindeer as the lead puller is perfectly logical in a child's mind. Important to note that Santa kept Rudolph in his stable and didn't sent him to southern Canada where he might be encouraged to embrace assisted death. Nor were any of the starting line-up replaced. They still needed eight strong reindeer for the flight; one can deduce that poor Rudolph was a perennial bench-warmer. The entire narrative became self-evident upon hearing that song this particular year - post Biden.
Upon exiting, I asked the clerk, "Fifty years from now do you think a Taylor Swift ornament will be somebody's nostalgia?
One more, from Ilene Heller:
As someone who grew up in a (nominally) Orthodox Jewish home in Brooklyn in the 1950s it doesn't surprise me that some of the most memorable Christmas songs were written by Jews. I lived in Bensonhurst (think "Saturday Night Fever") at a time when it was pretty much 50/50 Eastern European Jewish & Italian Catholic. The Jews lived in the apartment buildings on the avenues & the Italians lived in private homes on the side streets. Every year those homes were spectacularly decorated & lit up for Christmas. As you can imagine I thought that the Italians & Christmas were very exotic.
My mother sussed out my fascination & every year she took me to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes' Christmas show & the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. One year she even took me to see Santa at Macy's!
I still have the picture of me on his lap & I'm certain my grandparents never saw that picture or even knew of that outing. Anyway, ironically, I have some very proprietary feelings about Christmas and its music.
While I enjoyed this show, whenever I hear the "Rudolph" song I feel the same way I do when I hear the "Dreidel" song. At the risk of sounding like the Grinch or Scrooge both songs make me wince. This is because for both Christmas & Chanukah there are SO many absolutely beautiful traditional songs. I know that I don't have any Christian skin in the game but I adore "Cantique Noel," "O Holy Night," "Adeste Fidelis," etc. I do make exception for "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" (makes me weepy). Where I do have (Jewish) skin in the game I prefer "S'Vivon," "Hayo Haya," "O Chanukah," etc.BTW, I married one of those exotic Italians (he was born & raised in NYC's Little Italy) but he ended up converting to Judaism after 15 years of marriage (go figure) & really only likes the modern Christmas songs.
So, thank you Mark for another relaxing show (I really love the history/background aspects & for some reason most enjoy the 1930s/1940s "warbly" versions of songs).
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. Join us next Sunday for another seasonal classic.
