Mark Pentleton

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 [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This song dates from 1957 and was the title song of Frank Sinatra’s album, setting the tone for an album which featured various songs describing exotic locations, including April in Paris, The Isle of Capri, Blue Hawaii and Autumn in New York. Come fly with me must be one of the only songs ever to [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today’s song was written in 1931 by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt with lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was first recorded by Ozzie Nelson and his orchestra, but has been covered many times since by artists including Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Dean Martin. In 1968 the song was recorded [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’m cutting it a bit neat again tonight, but I’ve been up to my eyes all day today with work. Despite that I’ve been watching the events unfold at the San José mine in Chile as the trapped miners are rescued one by one. As I write this 30 of the 33 miners have been [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This song takes me back – my brother Derek and I used to sing along to this song, probably long before we understood the lyrics. It was released on Billy Joel’s 1982 album The Nylon Curtain, and is one of the most well-known songs about the Vietnam War. Not sure about the dodgy helicopter sound [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today’s song is a very special request for our son who turns 9 today! Happy birthday, Matthew! The Super Mario Bros theme was written by Koji Kondo who has written all the music for the Mario games and also the Legend of Zelda.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:43 — 2.4MB)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ve been thinking about all things Irish the past few days because I’ve been working in Dublin since Sunday on the “Digital Boot Camp” where I’ve been training 75 teachers from all over Ireland in podcasting, film-making, photo editing, etc. I recorded today’s song at the weekend and I think at the time I read [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Given that this is the 200th song in my 365songs project (just 165 to go…!) I wanted to play something big today and I’ve opted for the Billy Joel classic Piano Man. I’ve always loved this song – I used to play the harmonica along to it, but I couldn’t find a harmonica when I [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This song was written by James Horner, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for the 1986 animated film An American Tail. The song deals with the bond between two siblings and their desire to see each other again after being separated. The Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram version of the song went to #2 in the [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This song first appeared on Elton John’s 1974 album Caribou, but it perhaps wasn’t until 1991 that this song really found worldwide success. Elton John had performed it as a duet with George Michael at Live Aid in 1985, but the live recording from a concert at Wembley in March 1991 became a massive hit [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And we’re over the hill! Today is the start of the second half of the year and my 365 songs project, so I’m on the way down! I chose today’s song from the 1940 musical Pal Joey by Rogers and Hart where it was performed by Gene Kelly and Leila Ernst. I first heard this [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today’s song has to be something Canadian and I didn’t think O Canada (or indeed Dans mon pays il y a beaucoup de gens – a wee historical reference for Frank and Johanna there!) quite fits the bill, so I went for a Michael Bublé song for Canada Day. The last time I played this [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

All this week my friend and former colleague Joan Herald has been starring as Mother Abbess in Mearns Castle’s production of The Sound of Music. I would love to have seen the production but my trip to Denmark this week has made that impossible. I’m sure that Joan did an amazing job, and indeed that [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ve spent the last five days in Denmark working at the annual Apple Teacher Institute in Svendborg in the south of the island of Fyn. I thought therefore that I should really play something with a Danish theme, although this song isn’t really the most authentic option! It comes from the 1952 musical film about [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

In my opinion this song is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It dates from 1983, although it wasn’t released until six years later on Billy Joel’s Stormfront album. It’s said to tell the tale of the relationship between Billy Joel and the model Elle Macpherson, a relationship which the musician knew would [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This song from the Bernstein/Sondheim musical West Side Story, was first published in 1956. It marks the moment when the character Tony discovers the name of the girl with whom he has just fallen in love. Just to make sure he doesn’t forget it, he repeats the name 29 times in the song!
Podcast: Download (Duration: [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today’s song is one of the many underrated Abba songs, Cassandra. It was the b-side to the 1982 single The Day Before You Came, and I think the story related in this song was a precursor of the Björn and Benny’s future musical theatre work (Chess and Kristina från Duvemåla). While the lyrics seem to [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ve played this song hundreds, if not thousands of times, but it wasn’t until this morning when I was doing my ‘research’ to write today’s blurb that I found out that the song was actually originally written as the theme tune for the 1956 film Around the World in Eighty Days! The vocal version wasn’t [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today I’m playing the love duet from the film Moulin Rouge. It’s dedicated to my cousin Anita and her new husband Jimmy who got married yesterday in the beautiful surroundings of Ardkinglas in Argyll. We had a lovely day at the wedding and wish every happiness to Anita and Jimmy – and I hope you [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Tomorrow evening in the Telnor arena in Oslo, this song will be performed by the Belorussian group 3+2, accompanied by Swedish composer and performer Robert Wells of Rhapsody in Rock fame on the piano. I’m not sure how it will go down – it’s a nice ballad, with the added cheese factor of butterfly wings [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.