Song 21:365 is my version of Francis Cabrel’s Petite Marie, dating from 1977, and which became one of Cabrel’s most popular songs reaching #5 in the French charts and #8 in the Quebec charts. This song is also in my least popular (and least favourite) key – with only five other songs in B minor in my entire collection!
If this is your first visit to the site, find out more about the 365songs project here.
Song 20:365 is Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa. Dating from 1950, this song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and featured in the film Captain Carey, U.S.A. I hope you enjoy my version of this classic.
There are more Nat King Cole songs here in my collection, and if its your first time on the site, find out more about why I’m playing a song a day here.
Song 19:365 is the beautiful ABBA song When All Is Said and Done, first released in the Visitors album in 1981. Although the original version was up-beat, it told of the heartache after a relationship ends, something all the members of ABBA had experienced in that both Agnetha and Björn’s relationship and that of Benny and Annifrid had ended in recent years.
In 2004 Swedish jazz singer Viktoria Tolstoy recorded a slower ballad version with Benny Andersson on the piano. This ballad version was featured in the 2008 film version of the musical Mamma Mia, and it’s the style of my version which I think is more fitting for the lyrics!
If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project. If you’re looking for more ABBA songs, have a listen to my Tribute to ABBA album or check out my 2015 collection of ABBA songs from my archives.
Song 18:365 is From a Distance, made popular by Nashville singer Nanci Griffith in the year I claim is the best year in history for music, 1987 – just click on my 1987 songs to see what I mean! It was later covered by Bette Midler and Cliff Richard, but I think Griffith’s version is much better. I hope you like mine!
I hope you enjoy my performance. There’s more country-style music in my collection here, and if it’s your first time on the site, find out why I’m posting a tune a day here.
I’m staying with Andrew Lloyd Webber for song 17:365 which is Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again from the musical Phantom of the Opera. If Past the Point of No Return is the musical’s “eleven o’clock number”, the traditional show-stopping performance towards the end of the second act, then I think Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again must be the 10:45pm number!
The song is sung by Christine and is a lament for her father who died seven years previously. I’ve always liked the way this song goes between the minor verse and major chorus, and the extended section after the second chorus is beautiful: “No more memories, no more silent tears, no more gazing across the wasted years.”
I hope you enjoy my performance. There’s more Andrew Lloyd Webber music in my collection here, and if it’s your first time on the site, find out why I’m posting a tune a day here.
Song 16:365 is the title song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber short one-woman musical Tell Me on a Sunday which tells the story of an English woman who moves to the US in search of love. The original idea for Tell Me on a Sunday came from Tim Rice who intended to develop it as a TV show. However after they began working on it, it became clear that Tim Rice was writing it specifically for Elaine Paige with whom he was having an affair. Lloyd Webber felt this would suggest that he approved of the married father of two’s affair and so he decided to choose a new lyricist, opting instead for Don Black.
As with most of Lloyd Webber’s shows, Tell Me on a Sunday was first performed at the Sydmonton Festival in 1979 featuring Marti Webb. An album was recorded and a performance filmed by the BBC and broadcast in February 1980. The album quickly reached #2 in the charts. In 1982 Tell Me on a Sunday was combined with a ballet choreographed to Lloyd Webber’s Variations, a classical piece based on the Caprice in A Minor No. 24 by Paganini. Together the two-act show was called Song and Dance and debuted in the West End in 1982.
There’s more Andrew Lloyd Webber music in my collection here, and if it’s your first time on the site, find out why I’m posting a tune a day here.
Song 15:365 is a live recording from 2010 when I played Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are with my Apple colleague, saxophonist Joe Moretti, at an Apple event on a boat in the Thames. I actually rerecorded a solo version in 2015 on my birthday as one of my favourite songs, but I hope you enjoy this live recording with Joe on sax.
There are lots more of my versions of Billy Joel songs on the site, and if it’s your first time here you can find out why I’m posting a song every day here.
Song 14:365 is Wind Beneath My Wings, originally recorded Colleen Hewett in 1982, but made popular by Bette Midler for the soundtrack to the film Beaches. The random fact about this song is that in 2002 it was voted the most-played song at British funerals!
There are more songs from films here in my collection – and if it’s your first time here, find out more about why I’m posting a song every day.
We’re returning to 1940 for song 13:365 in my collection, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore with music by Duke Ellington and lyrics by Bob Russell. I think it was Harry Connick Jr’s version in the soundtrack of When Harry Met Sally which got me playing this song – in HCJ’s style, though nowhere near his performance! I hope you enjoy my version of a song I’ve loved playing for about 25 years!
There are more 1940s songs in my collection – click here – and if it’s your first time here, find out more about why I’m posting a song every day here.
Song 12:365 is my version of Phil Collins’ Against All Odds, recorded for the soundtrack of the 1984 film of the same name. I remember learning to play this as a 12 year old when it was released and it being one of the first songs I played in D flat major, and therefore “lots of black notes”. As a result of the black notes I think it felt a bit ‘oriental’ and that probably explains the slight pentatonic hints in my performance!
This song is also dedicated to drummers everywhere – there are no drums in my performance, but they’re definitely missing after that first chorus!
1980s feature heavily in my collection so if you’d some more 80s classics, click here. If it’s your first time here, find out more about why I’m posting a song every day here.
I actually recorded this song again for 2017 as I felt the original 2010 version wasn’t quite right. Here’s the original if you want to have a listen, but I hope you enjoy the new version.
