Programming note: Tomorrow, Sunday, Mark will be here with Part Thirteen of the new audio serialisation of his highly prescient demographic bestseller, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
~On this week's episode of Mark Steyn on the Town, Steyn remembers the great Italian singer Ornella Vanoni, and wishes a happy seventy-fifth birthday to Guys and Dolls. We'll hear Frank Loesser's great score performed by singers from Sinatra and Crosby to Bonnie Langford and Chrissie Hynde.
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~Thank you for your kind comments about last week's centennial salute to Johnny Mandel. Gary Alexander, our West Coast music maven, writes::
It's great hearing these Mandel tunes. I loved your Stacey Kent version of 'You Are There.' I sang that in a memorial for my parents, who willed me their gorgeous property here in the San Juan Islands, and I think about them each day in their home, in Frishberg's words, 'In the evening, while the kettle's on for tea' (for mom) and 'In the garden, when I stop to smell a rose' (for dad, the gardener).
And by the way, my kids have invited a friend named 'Emily' for Thanksgiving. Dare I sing her song, too? It's amazing how many young women named Emily have never heard of this gorgeous song. You (and I) keep these songs alive, but who after our demise will keep beauty alive? (Pardon the pathos.)
Alison Castellina, a Mark Steyn Club member from the English Home Counties, says:
That MASH song always astonished me so I am grateful that I now understand it and can appreciate the weird lyrics by a fourteen year old. 'The game of life is hard to play, I am going to lose it anyway, The losing card card I'll someday lay..' Genius! It is not 'stupid'. The thought is worthy of none other than 'to be or not to be' Will Shakespeare in Hamlet and Sonnet 66. He was tempted, quite often, I think, probably through underappreciation and overwork.
Thinking more widely, suicide may be painless, for a few but it is definitely not painless for the mystified left behind.
Jake, a Steyn Clubber from Devon, also enjoyed the M*A*S*H segment:
The genesis of Theme from M*A*S*H was fascinatingly bizarre. Even if a 'proper' lyric had been written later I doubt the clumsy kitsch of the original could have been erased from the mind. Not that it matters to millions. Most listeners seem to regard a song lyric as a mere hanger to carry the tune. We were lucky in the UK to be able to watch the TV series of M*A*S*H without the dreaded canned laughter. I can still remember the shock and heartache at the loss of the adorable Henry Blake.
There are so many great records made great not because of the song but more because of the arrangement yet do the arrangers get any royalties? Johnny Mandel's 'charts' - if that's the word - were all terrific and I especially loved those high, soft strings he conjures up. Let's Fall In Love was the pick for me and yet again Sinatra plays havoc with a lyric on In the Still of the Night with 'As I gaze outta my window...' I believe Cole Porter once remarked, 'Why does Frank Sinatra sing my songs as though he wished somebody else had written them?'
It was such a treat to hear Joni Mitchell and those sensational sidemen from Hissing of Summer Lawns again. Everybody says it's her masterpiece and I'm sure that's true, only I play Court & Spark far more.
And no, I hadn't realised there was another Sylvia Syms besides our own blonde beauty who let the ambulance roll back down the sand dune...
That was a crackerjack show, Mark!
One more from Richard Woodruff, a First Week Founding Member of the Steyn Club:
Mark, loved all the Johnny Mandel music. It happens I've hung on to an LP of Sue Raney (with the Bob Florence Trio) singing the music of Johnny Mandel. She sang several of the songs you played above, including a heart-breaking rendition of 'You Are There.' Ms. Raney kindly signed my copy at a club in North Hollywood where she performed some 30 or so years ago.
Thank you all. On the Town is Steyn's weekly music show on Serenade Radio every Saturday at 5pm Greenwich Mean 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.
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Mark Steyn on the Town can be heard on Serenade Radio at its regular times, now recovered from the momentarily misaligned hemispherical time-zones:
Saturday 5pm London time/12 noon New York
Sunday 5am London time/9pm Los Angeles