Song Stories

Down by the Salley Gardens

Yeats hears ‘three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman’

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Classic jump blues built from unfashionable parts

Who ‘didn’t notice that the lights had changed’?

Begin the Beguine

song that has always divided critical opinion

An Affair to Remember

Our love affair with the film and the song

How Well Could Cary Grant Sing?

“I’d like to have made one of those big splashy Technicolor musicals with Rita Hayworth.”

Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

That certain night The night we met There was magic abroad in the…

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

From ‘super racy’ early Hollywood songbook

Alfie

Burt, Cilla & Dionne

Cilla Black was the cloakroom attendant in The Cavern and an aspirant singer. Following Napoleon’s…