If you enjoy Steyn's Song of the Week at SteynOnline, 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. For all Mark's compatriots, does it get any more Canadian than...
I like New York in June
How About You?
Yes, indeed. That's a sufficiently Canadian song to be in the Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame, for reasons Mark gets to, eventually. In this Serenade Radio edition of his Song of the Week, Steyn talks to the composer of "How About You?", Burton Lane, and explores the origins of its most memorable line, with some of the best recordings across the decades.
Click above to listen.
~This airing of our Serenade Radio Song of the Week is a special presentation of The Mark Steyn Club. In In response to our last audio edition, "La Vie en Rose", Fraser, a Steyn Clubber from East Anglia, writes:
Apart from anything else, I was knocked out by the beauty of Patsy Gallant's speaking voice. Tremendous. What one can get from these programmes, expected and, in this instance, unexpected is never-ending.
That's interesting, Fraser. I'll pass it along to Mme Gallant. I think of Patsy's speaking voice as rather Acadian, but my fellow Canucks may feel differently.
Anna, a California member of The Mark Steyn Club, also liked the show:
Thank you Mark - I have not been so touched by your presentation of Steyn's Song of the Week since the inescapably memorable multiple renditions of Roses of Picardy... Today you brought the evolution of translation full circle by sharing Edith Piaf's touchingly trusting rendition of perhaps the best of a set of insipid English versions. I shall save and treasure this.
Anna's fellow Californian, Teresa Maupin, sympathised with my late father's streamlining of the text:
I bonded with your dad over his engaging manipulation of a lyric. When I sang Summertime to my young children, a phrase mysteriously became 'your mammy's rich and your daddy's good looking.' My daughter later pursued a singing career and said she was terrified of screwing up the lyrics on stage because of my early intervention!
Christine, a Steyn Clubber from just over the border from me in Maine, puts in a word for Mack David's original lyric:
Let's not be too harsh regarding "You're Too Dangerous, Cherie" :-). Had it been published in the 1930s, I can see it working perfectly in a fluffy Maurice Chevalier-Jeanette Macdonald musical.
I'm glad that Mr. David did not give up on his song, and I hope that he felt happy to see it soar to such heights thanks to Edith Piaf's unique persona, her own (and Marianne Michel's) gifts as a lyricist, and her huge, insistent heart.
And one more from Chris:
I admit that every time I hear Mark do a Song of the Week I almost always wind up saying 'He hasn't done this great song yet?' That certainly applies to this week's song. My youngest daughter, more well traveled than any of us and a genuine Francophile though living in Manhattan, practically squeaks with that little accordion when she walks to the subway. It's the accordion, not the 'cherie' that makes it French!
The Marianne Michel version is outstanding, but is there any one song in the world so associated with one singer then La Vie en Rose with Piaf? More than Sinatra's 'My Way' and Bing's 'White Christmas' and Judy's 'Over the Rainbow'? It's not that others can't sing it nearly as well, but you must associate it with that icon to even get by the first line. Or is it my Americancentric way of thinking? Do the French hear 'Over the Rainbow' and always hear Judy first no matter the Frenchman singing it?
Very enjoyable, though Mark has only reinforced my French accent adventures (that my daughter hates by the way) with the Boyer clip (say after me: 'hunh, hunh, hunh, Cherie'). What is that French word for 'tour de force'?---classic, Mark.
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. But do be careful because at this time of year some time zones have sprung into summer while others remain fallen back in winter. So throughout March please note the following times:
5.30pm Sunday London (1.30pm New York)
5.30am Monday London (4.30pm Sydney)
9pm Thursday London (2pm Vancouver)
Whichever you prefer, you can listen from anywhere on the planet right here.
