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 catch up via this SteynOnline premiere. Mark tells the story of a one-hit writer whose song from a Princeton University revue went around the world and into orbit. The show includes performances by Diana Krall, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, and the Street Singer.
Click above to listen.
~This airing of Steyn's Serenade Song of the Week is a presentation of The Mark Steyn Club. Thank you for your kind responses to our last audio episode on "O Sole Mio". Ilene Heller, a New York Steyn Clubber, writes:
My vote for the two best versions: 1. Elvis Presley, 2. Paul Sorvino - both sublime in their own ways.
Linda Powers, a Kansas member of The Mark Steyn Club, says:
OMGoodness, I had no idea the route to Elvis's twist on O Sole Mio. Wow! At that point in the program, I started to cha cha while making a batch of Friendship Tea, then jazz dancing to Tony Bennett's tune that followed. Some of the songs took me back to sock hops of days of old.
This was such a fun Song of the Week. Thanks, Mark. By the way, your voice sounded healthy and rich.
You may be confusing him with Elvis, Linda.
Ilene's fellow New Yorker, Chris, also enjoyed it:
That was a show. I can only praise you with opening the show with a Brooklyn boy (Sorvino) and closing it with a Queens boy (Bennett). As a New Yawker myself I will go along with Sorvino, congratulating him and probably the other 10,000 people who say 'My Own Sun' is about their aunt, grandmother or sainted mother (as I always refer to my dear, departed mom). But we are Irish folk, and the sun don't shine on us nearly as much. And I will put away my typewriter (sic) preparing to write new lyrics for Capua and Capurro's song since I will reap no reward til after the 2040's. By then, my children will only refer to me as their 'sainted father', I can only hope.
And one more from Fran, a First Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club:
This Song of the Week rocks, especially the version with the ice cream ad, and then about having just ten minutes. I know the latter was outside the spirit of the famous Neapolitan song but I got a great outright burst of laughter as I just wasn't expecting that just then. Very fine listening entertainment!
Thank you all. We do enjoy your comments on the show. Steyn Clubbers are welcome to leave them below - or anybody can leave them 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.
