Today I’m returning to Gershwin, one of my favourite composers. The song Love Walked In was written in 1930, although lyrics were not added until 1937 for the musical The Goldwyn Follies.
For more Gershwin, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/love-walked-in/s-jEov9
Today I’m playing the theme from the 1970s TV show Happy Days. Written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, it was used firstly in the closing credits, but from season 3 onwards also in the opening titles of the show, replacing Rock Around the Clock.
I hope you enjoy today’s tune. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/theme-from-happy-days
Today’s song is Andrea Bocelli’s Mille Lune Mille Onde (“A thousand moons, a thousand waves”) from his 2001 album Cieli di Toscana (“Tuscan skies”). It was written by Francesco Sartori, Claudio Corradini and Lucio Quarantotto, the same writing team behind the beautiful Con Te Partirò. I had never heard this song until last week when my mum mentioned it! Curiously it is the official song of all the Barilla pasta TV adverts – conjuring up images of moon-shaped pasta and wavy tagliatelle…
It’s the start of a new month here on 365Songs, so if it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or you can still see all of my August songs here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/mille-lune-mille-onde
Today’s song is ABBA’s Kisses of Fire, the B-Side to the 1979 single Does Your Mother Know. It has one of the best modulations of all ABBA songs in my opinion! When I taught at Mearns Castle we did a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream combined with ABBA songs and this song featured, complete with that all-important modulation!
If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my August songs here. If you’re looking for more ABBA songs, have a listen to my Tribute to ABBA album or check out this year’s ABBA songs from my archives.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/kisses-of-fire
Today’s song is the 1937 classic Once In A While. First recorded by Tommy Dorsey, it has since been recorded by many artists. Sadly it was the last song Bing Crosby ever recorded, 3 days before his death in 1977.
To hear more August songs, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m trying to record a piano tune every day here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/once-in-a-while
Today I’m playing Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday for my son who turns 14 today. I had no idea about the origins of this song until I did my usual research before posting the song. Stevie Wonder was one of the main figures to campaign for the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. to become a national holiday in the US and he wrote and released this song in 1981 to help promote the cause. Ronald Reagan approved the national holiday in 1983 and the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was held on 20 January 1986. The day was marked with a concert where Stevie Wonder performed the song in celebration. There’s more information in this video and to see the amazing, all-star performance from the concert, watch this video from 5:02.
To hear more August songs, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m trying to record a piano tune every day here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/happy-birthday
Today’s song is especially for my Mum who celebrates her birthday today – I hope you like my song choice, Mum!
Begin the Beguine is a fantastic song by Cole Porter, dating from 1935. He wrote the song aboard a Cunard Pacific cruise between Indonesia and Fiji in 1935 and it was introduced in the musical Jubilee which opened on Broadway later that year. One of the things I like most about this song is its irregular structure. Most popular songs of the era would have two or three 8-bar segments arranged in A-A-B-A. However this song is structured as A-A-B-A-C1-C2, with the first five segments having 16 bars, and the last having 28. As a result it’s pretty difficult to remember the structure unless (like I was!) you are following the music. In his book about American Popular Song, musicologist Alec Wilder described it as “a maverick, an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start to finish without the printed music … about the sixtieth measure I find myself muttering another title, End the Beguine.”
It was probably the version by Julio Iglesias which reached No.1 in the UK in 1981 which first brought this song to my attention, and when researching the song for today I discovered that Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote a short story entitled Julio Iglesias in which his recording of Begin the Beguine became unbearable to a group of sea turtles! My favourite reference, however, to the song is when Sebastian in the Disney version of The Little Mermaid sings “Under the sea, under the sea, when the sardine begin the beguine it’s music to me”.
To hear more August songs, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m trying to record a piano tune every day here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/begin-the-beguine
Here’s today’s song: it’s Maroon 5’s She Will Be Loved from 2004. This song topped the charts in Australia, the US, Belgium, Venezuela and Israel, and did pretty well pretty much everywhere else too!
To hear more August songs, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m trying to record a piano tune every day here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/she-will-be-loved
Today’s song is Angel of Music, a lovely piece from the musical The Phantom of the Opera and this was a special request from one of our young stars of the forthcoming High Five Spanish series with whom I’m working this week. ¡Espero que te guste, ‘Marina’!
If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my August songs here. If you’re looking for more songs from Phantom of the Opera and other musicals, have a listen to my Curtain Up album or listen to the main song from the musical which I played back in May.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/angel-of-music
Today’s song is the duet between Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder, My Love, dating from 1988. The two sing in harmony on the chorus and there’s something about Stevie Wonder’s voice and Julio Iglesias accent which is quite special. The video features footage of Julio Iglesias in China from 1988 where he became the first international artist to have a live television special with an audience of 400 million viewers.
To hear more August songs, click here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m trying to record a piano tune every day here.
https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/my-love
