DANNY BOY Music: Anon. Lyrics: Fred E Weatherly It sounds like a folk song that’s been around for centuries but the lyrics of ‘Danny Boy’ were written as recently as 1913 by the prolific Fred E Weatherly. He was a lawyer by profession but in his spare time managed…
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) Sudden Light Sudden Light was written in 1853 or thereabouts, and first published in 1863 in Poems: An Offering to Lancashire. It appeared in various versions over the next three decades, finally ending with a different last verse (see below) to that originally published. Rossetti’s déjà vu of an intimate relationship…
JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS Cole Porter The song is best known from its appearance in the 1960 film Can-Can when it was sung by Maurice Chevalier, but it was originally written by Cole Porter for the 1935 musical Jubilee. The title, however, goes back further: Porter wrote a song with this title for the 1930…
IVO THE DIVO I did something last night that I have only ever done once before: I walked out of a piano recital at the interval. If I hadn’t been sitting in the middle of Row K at the Royal Festival Hall I’d have walked out sooner. This was the much-heralded return to the venue…
Thomas Trotter rehearsing my Toccata Festiva on the organ of Birmingham Town Hall in March 2012 (with me as page turner). He gave the world premiere later that day. https://youtu.be/GRSZQiuPhTs Here’s the great Victor Borge in a rarely seen routine with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1986. He is one of my comedy heroes and…
Michelle Rocher died yesterday, Valentine’s Day. I never met him but I wish I had. I would have liked to thank him for giving me, in a roundabout way, some of the best paid jobs I ever had as an actor. In January 1982 I was just completing my four months run of Three Men…
LOVE IS HERE TO STAY by George & Ira Gershwin. This great classic of the American song book was penned for the movie The Goldwyn Follies in 1938. It was the last composition of George, the lyrics being added after his untimely death by brother Ira. The parody by the magnificent Allan Sherman (1924-73) comes…
The Art of the Encore The formal programme is complete, the audience is on its feet clapping and cheering and, after the second or third return to the platform to acknowledge the applause, our soloist indicates that he / she is going to play something more. A brief pantomime follows: An encore? Really? Me?…
DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE (Lyrics by Bob Russel, Music by Duke Ellington) This was written by Ellington as a big band instrumental number in 1940. The lyrics were added two years later and the Ink Spots had a Number One hit with it the year after that. It’s been recorded many times, of course,…
IF YOU WERE THE ONLY GIRL IN THE WORLD Lyrics by Clifford Grey, music by Nat. D Ayer The song was published in 1916 and introduced on 19 April 1916 at the premiere of the musical / revue The Bing Boys Are Here at the The Alhambra, Leicester Square. It was a duet sung by its…