Mark Pentleton
My music, my videos and my photos
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My latest posts
Music, photos and videos
The Girl from Ipanema
The 50th song of my collection for this year is The Girl from Ipanema (or Garota de Ipanema) dating from 1962 by the king of bossa nova Antonion Carlos Jobim and famously recorded by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz. The eponymous girl from Ipanema was a young woman who lived on Montenegro Street in Ipanema […]
As Time Goes By
Song 49:365 is the 1930s classic As Time Goes By, written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. It found fame in 1942 when it was sung by the character Sam in the film Casablanca and was voted No. 2 on the AFI’s 100 Years … 100 Songs celebration of the best songs in film. I hope […]
My Love, My Life
For song 48:365 I’m returning once again to ABBA and one of the lesser-known songs, My Love, My Life from the Arrival album. Björn Ulvæus claimed that this song was the finest example of Agnetha’s vocal purity. The song was reworked for the stage musical ABBAcadbra and performed by Elaine Paige – here’s a link […]
Lift the Wings
I’m playing catchup with song 47:365, Lift the Wings from Riverdance. I think this is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I think the most effective part is the way in which the entire verse is a sort of ‘hanging dominant’ – entirely in B major which builds up to the movement into the […]
Memory
Song 46:365 is Memory from the 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats based on T.S. Eliot’s poems. Lloyd Webber was concerned that the melody sounded too similar to Ravel’s Bolero and that the main theme resembled an improvised flute solo from California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & the Papas. However, he asked his father’s opinion […]
I Left My Heart in San Francisco
For the 45th song of the year I’m playing Ton Bennett’s I Left My Heart in San Francisco, dating from 1953. Tony Bennett said of the song, “that song helped make me a world citizen. It allowed me to live, work and sing in any city on the globe. It changed my whole life.” Since […]
Albums
Some of my favourite pieces of music
