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, two days ahead of the American "elections", Mark plays songs by mayors, governors, senators and presidential candidates - and tells the story of the only standard in the American songbook written by a man on a winning presidential ticket. You'll hear it sung and played by everyone from Dinah Shore and Nat King Cole to Van Morrison and Elton John.
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. Our last selection, "Witchcraft", prompted this reaction from Kitty, a First Day Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club:
I love this show! My grandson loves the version of this song sung by Frank Sinatra. It popped up on my YouTube feed in a group of songs titled Vintage Halloween. My grandson hears Sinatra start to sing 'Witchcraft' and starts dancing around the kitchen with a big smile on his face.
Frank Sinatra sings 'Witchcraft' perfectly. How fun to hear the back story on this song.
Gregory Belt, a First Week Founding Member, found it hard to get past the accompanying illustration:
Love the picture of Dolores Erickson in the second best album cover that she ever posed for.
Ah, the Golden Age of Album Covers. The world is a better place for having Miss Erickson in it. Chris, a New York State Steyn Clubber, says:
Four quick points:
1) I am guilty as charged, speaking New York-ese, that I loved 'Lucretia Borgia' and 'adored ja' . I knew MS would not like it but think of all the Borgias over the centuries who had no mentions in Top 40 pop!
2) And being old enough to remember but not participate; wasn't Penthouse Hugh Hefner's main rival for years? How weird to call it 'Playboy's Penthouse'!
3) As MS says 'where everything is policed except crime' I can only marvel at Carolyn Leigh getting a Philly copper to come into a theater to arrest anyone and
4) I am sad too that Cy Coleman didn't get a chance to sing at his own funeral because I have a small request in to my guardian angel that I be allowed to give the homily at mine, or do one of the readings or maybe be one of the altar servers or, hell, just pass the collection plate around;)
Robert writes from Coolidge, Arizona, a town named for the immediate superior of this week's composer:
Thx for the Anita Baker, Mark
As always, best wishes for your continued good health.
Thank you, Robert. One more from a musical mainstay of The Mark Steyn Club, Gary Alexander:
Another great show. I've got a great live version of Sinatra singing Witchcraft at the Sands in Vegas, November 1961 -- a very short one-chorus reading (1 minute, 20 seconds) in which he interrupts the end of the bridge (after singing 'when you arouse the need in me, my heart says yes indeed in me, proceed with what you're leading me to'), he interrupts himself to tell the audience, 'This is one of the dirtiest song I've ever heard" and he ends it quickly, saying "you dirty old witch, you.' Yep, it's just 80 seconds, a Half-Nelson on Riddle's Pitch-craft.
And that got me to thinking of your magical way with word choices, your bon mots, perfecting ("which-crafting") your choice of mashing words into new creations. Let me try a few Switch-crafting of arrangers on you.
When I think of all the arrangers Sinatra could have used for Witchcraft, we can be thankful he didn't use the relatively shallow sounds of Skitch-craft or Mitch-craft, or the swooning string Rich-craft of Gordon Jenkins, or the Kitsch-craft of Billy May, or a long shot, the Hitch-craft of Bernard Herrmann. Shall we add more?
Well, we're all with you on the Skitchcraft, Gary. Skitch Henderson was the pianist perhaps least sympathetic to Sinatra's singing - as you'll hear on next weekend's On the Town.
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.
