Programming note: Mark will be back in audio on Friday with the latest entry to our series of audio adventures, Tales for Our Time.
~If you missed today's Serenade Radio broadcast of our audio Song of the Week, here's a chance to catch up. In this show Mark tells the story of a song that's a blast of pure joy, but emerged from an unlikely corner of history.
Click above to listen.
This airing of our Song of the Week is a special presentation of The Mark Steyn Club. Thank you for your kind responses to this series. Of last week's selection, Larry Jordan, a Texas Steyn Clubber, writes:
It is Sunday and I've got the earphones on listening to Sunday (Mark's Song of the Week) and it's perfect. Feet-up longways on the corner sofa curled-up with my second-favorite girl (OK, she's a 13-year old Dachshund called Gretel), my sweet wife Mary opposite in a recliner reading a novel, at a cozy, quiet lake cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin. Thanks for the songs, Mark.
Had to hit pause and pull-up Spotify to look up Ethel Merman thanks to Mark's intro -- curtain up, light the lights, you've got nothing to hit but the heights -- great song. Why do I associate it with Looney Tunes? Can't seem to recall. Did Bugs Bunny cover this?
You might be confusing Merman's song, Larry, with Bugs and Daffy's terrific curtain-raiser for the Saturday-morning TV version of "Looney Tunes": "On with the show, this is it..."
Olga from Arizona asks:
Love the Jule Styne episode.
Can't help wondering, though ~ did Messrs. Styne & Steyn ever sit around comparing surname spellings, &, surely, there's a song in there, if only about that adroit, leaping E.
As it happens, they did discuss it, Olga - one day in 1984. And Mark did write a short lyric on Styne and Steins for his book Broadway Babies Say Goodnight.
This airing of our Serenade Radio Song of the Week is a special presentation of The Mark Steyn Club. 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 (2.30pm Sydney)
9pm Thursday London (1pm Vancouver)
Whichever you prefer, you can listen from anywhere on the planet right here.
