Mark Pentleton

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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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 song started life as an instrumental called Soleado by Ciro Dammicco and was recorded in 1974 by his group Daniel Sentacruz Ensemble. The lyrics were added later by Fred Jay. When a child is born has been recorded by many artists, but the most well-known is by Johnny Mathis from 1975. It was used [...]

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Given that most of the UK (with the exception of the southwest corner of Scotland where we live!) is still covered in snow, I thought I’d play White Christmas. There are probably many people at the moment who are far from dreaming of a White Christmas, but the scenes on the news each day look [...]

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This morning I am in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, accompanying a group of Scottish students who have spent the past few days au carrefour de l’Europe, at the crossroads of Europe. There has been ceilidhing in the streets, active learning in the Strasbourg challenge, and a fair bit of accordion playing (including a [...]

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Today would have been my gran’s birthday and so I thought it would only be right to play an Italian tune. I don’t really know much about this song, but I think she liked it! This recording is a piano / accordion “duo” so I hope it works, and there are a few more accordion [...]

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The accordion is back! When I was listening to the Ronan Keating version of today’s song I heard an accordion in the arrangement and thought perhaps it was time to resurrect my own accordion! I’ll need to get practising before my forthcoming trip to Strasbourg when I’ll have to play the accordion for various Swedish [...]

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I’ve been wondering what to play all day today for a Hallowe’en-themed song, and it wasn’t until I saw Anton Du Beke in Strictly Come Dancing tonight dancing to the Ghostbusters theme that I realised this was the piece of music to play! It was written in 1984 by Ray Parker Jr for the soundtrack [...]

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Time for a bit more Disney. Can you feel the love tonight was written by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice and featured in the 1994 Disney movie The Lion King. It was performed in the movie by various characters, and the Elton John recording was played over the end credits.
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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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It makes a change to be posting this in the middle of the day rather than at a few minutes to midnight! We’ve been doing some work in the house and I’ve set up my piano again in a slightly different way, so the sound may be a bit different in today’s recording. Anyway, today’s [...]

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It turns out that I’d already recorded In the wee small hours on 9th April, so here’s a replacement song. It’s Jimmy Durante’s song Make someone happy and, like In the wee small hours, it also featured on the soundtrack of Sleepless in Seattle. Apologies for the mistake, and I hope that this will make up [...]

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Given the time I thought that this would probably be a good song to play tonight! It was first recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1955 and since then has been covered by many artists including Nanci Griffith, Barbara Streisand, Carly Simon and Jamie Cullum. And now me, just before the stroke of midnight!
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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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Bright Eyes was the theme song from the 1978 animated film Watership Down which told the story of a group of rabbits. The song was written by Mike Batt and performed by Art Garfunkel and it was the best selling single of 1979.
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Today’s song is It had to be you, one of my wife Catriona’s favourite songs. It dates from 1924 and was performed by Priscilla Lane in the 1939 film The Roaring Twenties. Since then it’s been performed by many artists, including Harry Connick Jr. in the 1989 Sleepless in Seattle Soundtrack. [Correction: as Pierre-Benoît pointed [...]

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Yesterday I asked my son Ewan what song I should play today and he immediately suggested You’ve got a friend in me. He’s just seen Toy Story 3 with his brother and mum (I’ve not seen it yet, but look forward to seeing it some time soon!) so this seemed like a good song to [...]

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When I said that I was playing this song today my wife reminded me of the line in The Fabulous Baker Boys when Michelle Pfeiffer asks “does anybody really need to hear Feelings again in their lifetime?” However it was one of the songs which was regularly requested in the various restaurants and hotels I [...]

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Today’s song is dedicated to Fiona and Andrew who celebrate their wedding anniversary today. I promised them something cool yet romantic, so I hope this fits the bill! The song dates from 1967 and was first performed by Frankie Valli and soon after in 1968 by Andy Williams. It’s probably Andy Williams’ version we’re most [...]

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Today’s song is the theme song of the 1997 blockbuster Titanic. It was recorded by Céline Dion and went to number 1 all over the world, becoming the world’s best-selling single of 1998. The song also won an Academy Award for Best Song, several Grammies and a Golden Globe. I hope you enjoy my performance [...]

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