Mark Pentleton

There’s really only one song a Scot could play on Hogmanay: Auld Lang Syne. Our national poet Robert Burns wrote the poem in 1788 and along with the traditional tune known as Roud, it has become the traditional song of the New Year. Many versions of the song exist in many languages. Last year students [...]

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I suppose this should really be the final song in my collection, but there’s something typically “Hogmanayish” planned for tomorrow, so I wanted to get the Abba classic Thank you for the music in today. The song was recorded in summer 1977 (I had just turned five at the time!) and was included on The Album, [...]

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I couldn’t end my 365songs project without including this classic. Originally a French song, Comme d’habitude, by Claude François, the English lyrics were written by Paul Anka after he heard the French version while on holiday in the south of France. Anka wrote the song for Frank Sinatra and it was recorded on 30 December [...]

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We’re into the final few songs in my 365 collection and today I’ve decided to play this classic song from 1940. The piano part to the song is notoriously difficult to play, so I ended up doing a few takes of this and decided to do a full backing track with strings, kit and bass. [...]

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Today’s song dates from 1947 and was written by Frank Loesser, the lyricist of over 700 songs from films and musicals including Baby, it’s cold outside, On a slow boat to China, Two sleepy people and the musical Guys and Dolls. The first time I heard this song it was sung by Harry Connick Jr [...]

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Today’s song was chosen by my son Matthew, who insisted that it should be played after Christmas because, after all, the lyrics are “Mary’s boy child, Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas day”, so it wouldn’t be right to play this song until after Christmas day! It dates from 1956 when it was released by [...]

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Here’s the second song for today – probably my all-time favourite Christmas song. I hope you enjoy this song and I hope you enjoy your Christmas day wherever you are!
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Happy Christmas to one and all! Here’s a wee bonus song for Christmas day: Jingle Bells was published in 1857 and, curiously, was the first song broadcast in outer space in 1965! I’d like to wish everyone who has tuned in to my daily tunes for the past 359 days a very happy and peaceful [...]

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There’s only one song I can play today and it’s my favourite song from my favourite Christmas film, The Muppet Christmas Carol. We used this song last year at the church Nativity and I’ve based my version today on that one. Have a lovely Christmas Eve everyone! Here’s the song from the film on YouTube. [...]

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I asked Matthew and Ewan which Christmas songs they’d like me to play and when, so today Ewan wanted me to play his favourite, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. It dates from 1949 and was first performed by Harry Brannon New York radio and then recorded by Gene Autry. Since then it has been recorded hundreds [...]

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Today’s song is the theme from the 1982 film The Snowman based on the children’s book Raymond Briggs. It was written by Howard Blake and sung by Peter Auty in the film, but popularised by Aled Jones in a single which reached number 5 in the UK charts at Christmas 1985. It has been parodied, [...]

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This isn’t actually a Christmas song, but I’ve always associated it with Christmas because it was one of our standard programme numbers from the Mearns Castle choir days when we used to perform at Princes Square in Glasgow at Christmas. It was written for Céline Dion by David Foster and Babyface for the opening ceremony [...]

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For years Christmas ‘pop songs’ conjured up images of Cliff Richard in a woolly jumper and scarf swaying back and forwards singing Mistletoe and Wine. I’m not very fond of that song, but I do like Little Town which is based on the carol Oh Little Town of Bethlehem. As far as I can gather this was [...]

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Today’s 365song is the beautiful Christmas carol which dates from 1818 when Franz Gruber famously composed this piece of music with a guitar accompaniment based on the words by Father Joseph Mohr because the church organ was not working and Midnight Mass in the village of Oberndorf was fast approaching. I hope you enjoy my [...]

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Today’s 365song is perhaps one of the most well-loved carols: Away in a manger. It was first published in 1885 and the text was attributed to Martin Luther. There are two well-known melodies, but I’ve chosen to play the original, known as St. Kilda. I love Hayley Westenra’s studio recording of this carol – a [...]

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This is one of my favourite pieces of Christmas music. The original version was composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 as a musical accompaniment to Placide Cappeau’s Christmas poem, Minuit Chrétiens (”Midnight, Christians”). I remember hearing the French version on the soundtrack of the film La Neige et le Feu which I saw at Christmas [...]

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Today’s song was originally recorded in 1999 by Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli and featured on both Dion’s Christmas album These are special times and Bocelli’s album Sogno. I like the combination of English and Italian lyrics in this song. I included the song on my compilation in aid of the Haiti Earthquake earlier this [...]

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I’ve never been quite sure about this song which dates from 1975. I love the music, especially the combination of the verses with Prokofiev’s Troika theme from the Lieutenant Kijé suite. However the lyrics have always seemed to me to be quite negative. However, as I’ve done my research for today’s song I’ve read that [...]

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I recorded this piece last week as the accompaniment to a video I made on a cold afternoon in Ayr and Alloway. I’ll post the video below. The song was based on a poem by Christina Rossetti written around 1872. It only became a Christmas carol when it was given a musical setting by none [...]

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Today is St Lucia’s day and is a special day in Sweden, and indeed in other parts of Scandinavia and Northern Europe. St Lucia or St Lucy was sentenced to be burned, but the flames did not consume her. In Sweden a girl in each town is chosen to be Lucia and leads a [...]

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