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 April's Mark Steyn Cruise - along with many other favourite features from SteynOnline and The Mark Steyn Show. More details here.
~If you missed Steyn's Song of the Week earlier today on Serenade Radio, here's a chance to catch up via this SteynOnline premiere. In this show I tell the story of Édith Piaf and what was, at the time, a most unPiaf song. Along the way, we'll also hear a variety of vocalists from Gracie Fields to Grace Jones - and a live performance of the song from the great Patsy Gallant, who also recalls her own childhood encounter with Piaf.
To listen to the show, simply click above.
~Thank you for your enthusiastic and insightful comments about this series. In response to our last audio edition, "The Folks Who Live on the Hill", John Lewis, a First Quarter Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from the English Home Counties, writes:
This is one of the very few songs that has me in tears.
When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s it was a favourite of my parents.
As they grew older and I grew marginally wiser everything in it reminded me of their simple but wonderful lives - and it still does.
Gary Alexander, on the other hand, is living the life:
A very meaningful song to us, for a long time -- 57 years married, now with a house on a hill in on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest -- yes, with a veranda, adding a wing or two for the following generations sharing the "meadows green" with us. My folks created it, earning first dibs on the title, but we're second in line, and now the fourth generation shares the hill with us. Thank you, Jerry, Oscar and Mark.
We certainly hope Gary's veranda does command a view. From David Bosley, another Home Counties Steyn Clubber:
'Command a' and 'verandah'. Brilliant rhyming.
No arguments there, David. Rhode Island member William Young writes:
Delightful, Mark. I kept waiting for Peggy's version and as usual you did not disappoint. I was fortunate enough to have seen her a few times singing from a wheel chair during her final years, still pristine, pitch perfect and totally mesmerizing.
Peg-wise, Catherine agrees with William:
Thank you Mark for your fascinating Song of the Week yesterday. Waited all through for Peggy Lee, absolute perfection. Have loved her version all my life, didn't know that Frank was conducting, always thought it was Nelson Riddle.
Thank you, Catherine. That is a rare example of a singularly perfect version of a song. Re conducting, several of Sinatra and Riddle's regular players told me that, by the late Fifties, they thought Frank a better conductor than Nelson. The latter was the genius arranger, of course – but his arrangements were so good he wasn't always able to conduct them.
One more from Chris, a Steyn Clubber in upstate New York:
Well, this might be the best Song of the Week ever- and I knew nothing about this song but knew a little about Jerry and Oscar! Just the great opening with Eric Clapton singing had me transfixed.
I think somewhat as you get older there are so many things you bring forward to songs like this that clearly make them wistful in addition to pastoral and contemplative, even with the fun rhymes. Clapton's 'Heaven' only adds gravitas to him singing 'The Folks who Live on the Hill'. So you started me right off thinking about early Randy Newman singing about a Texas girl at the funeral of her father or even Tom Waits doing 'House where Nobody Lives'. These are the benefits of an eclectic education and old age. Is it more our age and what we've been through to wince somewhat at Irene Dunne's doing it but fall back into a down comforter of Clapton or Peggy Lee trying it on?
This is truly an archetype of Americana. And as I look back from my Darby and Joan perspective, (OK, I'm not quite that old but I certainly don't want to be Baby and Joe) the song dissipates so slowly as the sun goes down over that veranda. Beautifully done Mark, great insights by you and Kern's godson and Hammerstein junior.
Thank you all. We do enjoy your comments on the show. You're welcome to leave them below - or 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 GMT (12.30pm New York)
5.30am Monday GMT (4.30pm Sydney)
9pm Thursday GMT (1pm Vancouver)
Whichever you prefer, we hope you'll tune in. You can listen from anywhere on the planet right here.
~This airing of our Serenade Song of the Week is a special presentation of The Mark Steyn Club. We launched the Steyn Club well over seven years ago, and as we approach our eighth birthady I'm immensely heartened by all the longtime SteynOnline regulars - from Fargo to Fiji, Madrid to Malaysia, West Virginia to Witless Bay - who've signed up to be a part of it. Membership in The Mark Steyn Club also comes with non-musical benefits, including:
~Our latest audio adventure in Tales for Our Time, and its nearly seventy thrilling predecessors;
~Other audio series on pertinent topics, such as our serialisation of Climate Change: The Facts and adaptation of Mark Steyn's Passing Parade;
~My exclusive anthology of video poetry - because, as I always say, that's where the big bucks are: the latest entry airs next week;
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly (such as this coming Wednesday's);
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show, and other video content;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, including exclusive members-only events such as The Mark Steyn Christmas Show, assuming I'm ever again healthy enough for such events;
~Customised email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here. And for our special Gift Membership see here.
One other benefit to Club Membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you feel the above show is la vie en a big black hole, then give it your best below. Please do stay on topic on all our comment threads, because that's the way to keep them focused and readable. With that caution, have at it.
