On this week's episode of Mark Steyn on the Town, we start and end with memorable mononyms, from Sting to Hildegarde. We also remember Cleo Laine and the Royal Victoria Hotel in Nassau.
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~Thank you for your kind comments about last week's special celebration of Alan Bergman. Bob Loblaw tweets:
Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this commemorative episode... one hour of excellent songs perfectly produced... hearing Frank Sinatra sing a bouncing/swinging version of Allen and Marilyn's Old McDonald was one of the high points for me too 😄
— Bob Loblaw 🇺🇸 (@BobLoblaw555) July 26, 2025
Phil, a First Hour Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, was impressed enough, after eight years, to make his first comment:
Mark - I really didn't know the Bergmans. A really stellar episode. Loved the interview bits with Alan. Thanks for the intro to a wonderful songwriter team.
Thank you, Phil. Teresa, a California Steyn Clubber , was especially struck by Alan Bergman's decision to turn down any singers who want a piece of their ten-minute Sinatra epic:
Nowadays, who would keep a song under wrap 'just' because it was written specifically for someone else? No one if there was money to be made. Another of the many reasons the Bergmans were special.
Also, chuckled over quip on maintaining a marriage, "she washes, I dry." Truer words were never spoken!
Finally, I LOVED Alan's voice.
For Gary in Washington State, it was the opening number:
Your opener, 'A Love Like Ours' is indeed a perfect love song, esp. for long-time lovers like Alan and Marilyn. Ironically, I heard this song for the first time on this year's Jazz Cruise (late January 2025), when pianists Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes (husband and wife) were inducted into the Jazz Cruise Hall of Fame.
In an unrehearsed moment during their piano duets during the induction ceremony, Bill Charlap took time out from the frenetic virtuoso keyboard pairing to sing this song (also playing light piano behind his vocal) to his wife of 17+ years. Bill has the soft kind of voice Alan Bergman used for this song, and Bill put emphasis (as Alan did) on what I would call the 'payoff line' toward the end of the lyrics:
When love like ours arrives
We guard it with our lives.
That is a terrific couplet, Gary. One more, from Stefan, another California Steyn Clubber:
Mark, thank you for this wonderful retrospective on the life and work of Alan Bergman, as only you could provide, not only because of your extensive knowledge of his work, but also because you knew him and had interviewed him. Where else might we get such depth and insight?
I suggest the answer is 'nowhere.' And that's why we love On the Town so much, because of your extensive knowledge and enthusiasm. That you would put aside your usual show format — no Café Continental nor Imperial, no number ones throughout the decades — shows how much you loved and respected your subject, that Alan Bergman was your friend.
You said that you had expected that he would he would live to see his centennial, but we can never know when that final curtain will come down. And it hit me, when I heard your announcer close the program with 'Mark Steyn will be on the town again next week, that one of these Sundays, you will not. But we don't know when that will be, much as we didn't know that Rush's final broadcast would be his last. That's why we can never miss an episode, so that we can drink of your effluence for as long as the Lord allows. Because nobody does it as nice and easy as you, good sir!
Thank you, Stefan. We are glad that you are not using effluence in the sense that the late Saudi Minister of Water and Sewage once used it of Mark.
~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 or 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere in the world by clicking the button at top right here. We also post On the Town at SteynOnline every weekend as a bonus for Mark Steyn Club members. You can find all our previous shows here.
We do enjoy your comments on our weekend programming. Steyn Clubbers are welcome to leave them below. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, now in its ninth year, see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership.
Mark Steyn on the Town can be heard on Serenade Radio at its regular times next weekend:
Saturday 5pm London time/12 noon New York
Sunday 5am London time/9pm Los Angeles
