Mark Pentleton

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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Today is St Andrew’s day, a day of celebration here in Scotland, although the weather is somewhat curtailing the celebrations with snow covering most of the country! Flower of Scotland has become something of an unofficial national anthem since it was written in 1967 by Roy Williamson of the Corries. When the Scottish National Orchestra [...]

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Today’s song was written by Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys in 1975 and was made famous by Barry Manilow, winning a Grammy Award in 1976. It is often thought that the “I” of the song refers to the songwriter, but according to Johnston the “I” is music itself. I write the songs has been [...]

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Today’s song is actually linked to one of my earliest musical memories. I think I would have been about 4 or 5 and I remember listening to this song on my dad’s reel-to-reel tape deck, along with He is your brother on Abba’s Greatest Hits album. It was written in 1973 and was released in [...]

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After yesterday’s Come fly with me and the talk of Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album of exotic songs, I thought I’d play another travel-related theme today, and it’s one of the most-requested songs from when I used to play in hotels. New York, New York was written in 1977 by John Kander and Frank Ebb and [...]

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This song was recorded in 1977 and the various working titles for the song included Yippee Yay, Joanne, Love for me is love forever and the rather cryptic Big John. I’m glad it ended up as Move on, not Big John!
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Today’s song – the first song of my penultimate month on 365songs – is Abba’s SOS from the 1975 Abba album. It is one of the group’s best-known songs and reached #6 in the UK charts on its release in September 1975. It was #1 in Australia, Belgium, West Germany, New Zealand and South Africa! [...]

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This is probably not the best-known song of my 365 collection, but I’ve always liked its simplicity. It was recorded by Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog in 1975 and featured on her album Elva kvinnor i ett hus (Eleven women in one house). The title of the song means “thanks for a wonderful, ordinary day” and in [...]

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Today’s song is from the 1976 musical Evita and is sung by the character Che as Eva dances at the ball with Juan Perón, now Argentina’s president-elect.
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Last night I attended my friend and former colleague Joan Herald’s retirement party. It was a great night and I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with lots of old friends and former colleagues. No party for Joan would be complete without a bit of karaoke, and since Joan performed this song I thought it would be [...]

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This gorgeous, simple song was first recorded by Benny and Björn in 1970, and then released by Anni-Frid on her solo album in 1971. The title of the song, Lycka, means “happiness” in Swedish and the lyrics tell the story of a couple who spend some time with each other after a busy day. There [...]

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This is definitely the first song I’ve played on my 365songs project which is about a rodent! Ben dates from 1972 and was originally written for Donny Osmond. However, he was on tour at the time so it was given to Michael Jackson who recorded it for the film Ben which deals with the friendship [...]

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A big song today: this was voted the number 1 song in the Fans’ Top Ten Beatles Songs. It was written in 1970 by Paul McCartney. I hope you enjoy my performance!
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After the ‘guest performance’ I posted earlier today, here is today’s 365song. It’s Abba’s Gonna sing you my love song, an album track from the 1974 album Waterloo. Hope you enjoy it!
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Today is our younger son’s 6th birthday and his special request was for the theme from Star Wars. It was written by John Williams for the first Star Wars movie in 1977 and has featured in the entire series of films since then. Happy birthday to Ewan and I hope you like today’s tune!
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Today’s song is an album track from Abba’s 1974 Waterloo album. I’ve always really liked this song. Benny and Björn were heavily influenced by Ronnie Spector and this track is an example of this. Without the 12-string guitars my version is a bit different, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. It’s also (I think) [...]

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I was at the beach the other day and overheard someone singing this song so I thought I’d play it today. It dates from 1972 and the original version was performed by Johnny Nash. Subsequent covers have included a version by the Hothouse Flowers in 1990, and Jimmy Cliff’s version in 1993 which featured in the [...]

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The words “perfect day” came to mind last night as we walked along Ayr beach in beautiful late-summer sunshine (even if it was a bit cold!) so I decided to play Perfect Day as the last song of August’s 365songs. Dating from 1972, Lou Reed included this on his Transformer album. It also featured in [...]

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Although I got back from Ireland last night I’m still in a bit of an Irish mood so I thought I’d play this song today. It’s a beautiful song in the 1970s by Pete St. John, set during the famine of the 1840s, and tells the tale of Michael, a fictional man from Athenry in [...]

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This song is sung by Mary Magdalene and the Apostles just after Jesus is condemned by Herod in the musical and the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. I particularly like the chorus of this song: the line “I think you’ve made your point now”, and the following line which is sung in sixths by [...]

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