To mark the Mark Steyn Club's seventh birthday this month, we have not only the return of Tales for Our Time but also a brand new weekly music show. The first episode premiered three weeks ago on Serenade Radio and will air every Saturday thereafter. You can listen from anywhere in the world by clicking the button at top right here.
As you know, I'm a great believer in old-school appointment listening, and I love the way Serenade's Saturday schedule flows from Cindy Kent to me to the evening shows. However, I appreciate that many potential listeners are, at the appointed hour, getting their twelfth booster shot or whatever. So, as a bonus for Steyn Club members, we shall be posting the shows here every Saturday.
In today's episode, we feature the biggest hits ever to come out of Denmark and South Africa. Plus a celebration of two great but very different American composers.
To listen to the show, simply click here and log-in.
Thank you for all your kind comments on this new weekly broadcast. John Barrett, a Steyn Clubber from three hours down the road from me in New Hampshire, enjoyed last week's tip of the hat to Charles Aznavour:
Mark, what a wonderful show. I particularly liked Bing's 'Yesterday While I Was Young', which I had not heard, and the duets with Sinatra and Aznavour - so heartwarming.
I do wonder about the 'Easy Listening' moniker that Serenade uses - I think of 'elevator music' and their programs are certainly not that.
If you ever find an elevator that plays as good music as Serenade, John, do let me know: I'll be holing up there for the duration. I like to think that, rather like the gangsta rappers and the LGBTQWERTY crowd with various other epithets, we're reclaiming the word - and, as you know, I have a certain antipathy to all those other shows with the butch bumper music and the easy-listening opinions.
Gary, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, also enjoyed last week's broadcast:
Mark,
I'm an old man and have been thinking a lot about this point in life, having lost so many family members and friends along the way. So this episode touched me very much. It fits my mood about life — and about the state of America and the Commonwealth countries.
Steady, Gary: let's not get too elegaic. I like to think that today's show, in its various American-Commonwealth-Continental contributions, has a youthful vigour.
We do enjoy your comments on our weekend programming. Steyn Clubbers are welcome to leave them below. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, upon the occasion of our seventh birthday, see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership.
Mark Steyn on the Town can be heard on Serenade Radio at the following hours:
Saturday 5pm London time/9am Los Angeles
Sunday 5am London time/12 midnight New York
Steyn's Song of the Week continues at its usual hour on Sunday, Monday and Thursday.