À la Bastille!

July 13, 2024

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Programming note: Please join Mark later today for Episode Two of his brand new Tale for Our Time, Bulldog Drummond.

~On this week's special Bastille Day edition of On the Town, Steyn celebrates some great French songs with such famous Gallic sophisticates as Willie Nelson and Aretha Franklin - oh, and also Yves Montand and Mireille Mathieu. Plus a cavalcade of Franco Sinatra, and a side-trip to the New Hebrides - concluding with Patsy Gallant and a snapshot of a day in Paris.

To listen to the programme, simply click here and log-in.

For a show focused on a comparatively obscure songwriting team, last week's On the Town attracted a lot of favourable comment. Jackie writes:

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this particular episode. The first song I was mesmerized by the beauty of the tone of the vocalist and was surprised to learn it was Dinah Shore. I grew up with Dinah on television and of course the sensation of her romance with Burt Reynolds, many years her junior, but never realized her talent. Outstanding. Your selection once again invoked sentiments and left me slightly melancolic. Beautiful music.

Dinah was an excellent telly presenter, Jackie, so successful that people forget she was also one of the very greatest interpreters of popular song - as apparently did Devon Steyn Clubber Jake:

How could I be so wrong? I was delighted to hear Mark start his show with one of the surest, sassiest and sexiest of the great chan-toozys, Doris Day. Except that it wasn't. It was someone called Dinah Shore. Ah, right. I'll get me coat...

Really enjoyed this week's show, Mark. If music and lyric are supposed to be a 50/50 arrangement, I suspect Gus Kahn's contribution to 'It Had to Be You' might rate a little higher.

Actually, Jake, that 50/50 split became the subject of some contention between Messrs Jones and Kahn - and resolved rather brutally, as you'll know if you heard the end of our Song of the Week show on "The One I Love (Belongs to Somebody Else)".

First Month Founding Member Steve writes from Manhattan:

Love it! Mark, I know you close the show with a recommendation to tune in again next week, but I had to listen to Isham Jones a second time. Couldn't wait a day, much less seven. Thanks for bringing joy to a hot n' humid weekend.

And when, the Lord Almighty willing (as Joe Biden might say), I sail away from Barcelona next April on the Mark Steyn cruise, I plan to listen to 'Spain' as we cast off. Might even go for the whole Megillah.

"Spain"... "It Had to Be You"... But Iowa member Michael Baker plumps for yet another Jones/Kahn standard:

The Isham Jones show was full of jewels, just bursting with 'em! I listened to it live for the first three songs but paused to chauffeur my wife for shopping. I wondered what I was missing, then, later, I wondered if young Frank heard 'Swingin' Down the Lane' as a young boy, never forgot how well it moved, 'til that day he made it his own.

Also, it's always nice to hear Jo [Stafford], even as part of a back-up quartet. (I'm her second biggest fan.) Mark has something that every great vocalist and DJ needs, a gift for great song selection. thanks, mb

"Spain"... "It Had to Be You"... "Swingin' Down the Lane"... Ha! scoffs Josh Passell:

I listened to the show live today, and I was really struck by the "definitive ballad" version of 'The One I Love'. Did Gordon Jenkins make some kind of classical allusion in the strings? Whatever, it was staggeringly beautiful. Melancholic and transcendent. I've already listened twice more.

One more, from Martyn, whose highlight wasn't Jones & Kahn at all:

How nice to hear Geoff Love talking on Mark Steyn on the Town. My mother loved Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto back in 1976. Many thanks Mr Steyn.

Thanks for all your comments. On the Town is Steyn's weekly music show on Serenade Radio every Saturday at 5pm British Summer Time - that's 6pm in western and central Europe/12 midday North American Eastern. You can listen from anywhere in the world by clicking the button at top right here.

As listeners know, Mark is a great believer in old-school appointment listening, and loves the way Serenade's Saturday schedule flows from Cindy Kent to Steyn and on to the evening shows. However, we appreciate that many potential listeners are, at the appointed hour, shampooing the cat. So, as a bonus for Steyn Club members, we shall be posting the shows here every weekend.

We do enjoy your comments on our weekend programming. Steyn Clubbers are welcome to leave them below. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, 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.