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NOW IN HARDBACK!
Mark's writing on one of his favorite lyricists and one of his favorite composers are now available with a Steyn classic on Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra and "I've Got You Under My Skin" - all together in one handsomely illustrated brand new hardcover book
Mark Steyn's
American Songbook
(also available with
musical accompaniment)
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MERCER MONTH |
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Monday, 02 November 2009 |
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Song of the Week #145
An audio celebration of Johnny Mercer
All this month at SteynOnline we're marking the centenary of one of the most successful and prolific of American songwriters, born November 18th 1909. We'll be observing the anniversary in our traditional Song of the Week format on the next four Mondays, with a bonus Song of the Day in mid-month. But Johnny Mercer wrote so many great songs that, even devoting the whole of November to him, we're only able to pick out one hit per decade from a very long career. So, by way of introduction, here's part one of a special audio podcast edition of Song of the Week, in which I'll introduce the Mercer catalogue with performances of "Moon River", "Jeepers Creepers", "Fools Rush In", "Blues In The Night", "Too Marvelous For Words", "Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate The Positive", "That Old Black Magic", "Goody Goody", "Hooray For Hollywood", "Skylark" and many more, as sung by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, k d lang, Louis Armstrong, Rita Hayworth, the Mills Brothers, Rosemary Clooney, Clint Eastwood and many more, including Johnny Mercer himself. You can get the podcast here - and be singing along within seconds. And stay tuned for part two later in the week.
[NOTE: This is the second of our occasional audio editions of Song of the Week, following our centenary observations for Mercer's friend and collaborator, Carl Sigman.]
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Steyn’s Song of the WeekMonday, 08 February 2010
Song of the Week #156
by Bobby Charles
See You Later, Alligator
After 'while, crocodile
See You Later, Alligator
After 'while, crocodile
Can't you see you're in my way now?
Don't you know you cramp my style?
Notwithstanding the confident assertion of a remarkable number of dictionaries, the phrase predates the song. "Alligator" is jazz rather than rock slang.... Read more... Steyn on CultureMonday, 01 February 2010 A couple of years back, I wrote:
The other night at dinner, I found myself sitting next to a Middle Eastern Muslim lady of a certain age. And the conversation went as it often does when you're with Muslim women who were at college in the sixties, seventies or eighties. In... Read more... Steyn on BooksMonday, 01 February 2010 Rajendra Pachauri, the cricket-loving climate-profiteering Nobel Peace Prize-winner with a carbon footprint almost as big as Al Gore's, heads up the IPCC, the global climate-change racket whose "settled science" is getting less settled by the minute. It seems an odd moment for Dr. Pachauri to branch out into bodice-heaving fiction:... Read more... Steyn on Stage and ScreenTuesday, 26 January 2010
When Gene Hackman was 13, his father, an Illinois newspaperman, walked out on his family. As he drove off, never to be seen again, he gave a casual, enigmatic wave that Hackman has never forgotten. "It was so precise," he said. "Maybe that's why I became an actor. That one... Read more... Steyn on PeopleMonday, 18 January 2010
Today - November 18th - would have been Johnny Mercer's one hundredth birthday. You can hear part one of our centenary podcast here, and also read my thoughts on Goody Goody, Blues In The Night, Hooray For Hollywood, and Midnight Sun. But this is what I have to say about Mercer... Read more... Ave atque valeThursday, 04 February 2010 HAPPY WARRIOR
from National Review
I was overseas when Senator Edward Kennedy died, and a European reporter asked me what my “most vivid memory” of the great man was. I didn’t like to say, because it didn’t seem quite the appropriate occasion. But my only close encounter with the Lion of... Read more...
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THE STEYNONLINE HIT PARADE
Mark's most popular Songs of the Week
1) HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS (1946)
2) EDELWEISS (1959)
3) TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME (1908)
4) SOLILOQUY (from Carousel) (1945)
5) SEND IN THE CLOWNS (1973)
6) BUTTONS AND BOWS (1947)
7) AUTUMN LEAVES (1945)
8) MACK THE KNIFE (1928)
9) THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT (1939)
10) THERE'LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND (1939)
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