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On our Independence Day edition of The Mark Steyn Show you'll hear "America the Beautiful", "My Country, 'Tis of Thee", "You're a Grand Old Flag", and other songs that celebrate love of country. Which is just as well, because, on this strangest of Fourths, patriotic songs seem to have joined other once universal phenomena, such as freedom of speech, in the suddenly partisan category. And don't get the lefties started on being "proud to be an American"... So I thought, in the interests of forming a more perfect union this weekend, I'd rustle up a patriotic song by a man...

Tonight is Oscar Night in Hollywood, which I find all but unwatchable these days. It is our custom to have an Academy Award-winning Best Song on this night, but, for the first time, I'm beginning to wonder if we've exhausted the possibilities. Fifty years ago, the Oscar went to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", but we did that just the other day. Seventy-five years ago, it was "Swingin' on a Star", but we've done that, too. Seventy and eighty years ago, the winners were, respectively, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and "Over the Rainbow", but we've done both of them....

Harry Connick Jr. recalled an “unpleasant experience” with Frank Sinatra when he was “completely inappropriate” with his then-girlfriend and current wife, model Jill Goodacre. The jazz artist remembered getting choked up during a performance in front of Sinatra, who died in 1998. “That was an unpleasant experience because as much as I wanted to sing for him and everyone else … I don’t get nervous but I was really nervous for that and I blanked out,” he said on the UK’s “This Morning” (via Yahoo News). “I completely forget the words. I was with my wife, then my girlfriend, and...

Back again for the weekend.... "There was the Duke of York he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again..... Jeffrey Epstein was a mistake we are being told.... When it comes to sex my experience is that the wrongdoing is in thought word and deed or some combination of the three..... I go into the literature of my experience to page 69, no kidding. "One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. Then we have the...

The end-of-summer winds make people restless. - Sebastian Faulks Your Friday musical interlude: The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea It lingered there, to touch your hair and walk with me All summer long we sang a song and then we strolled that golden sand Two sweethearts and the summer wind   Like painted kites, those days and nights they went flyin' by The world was new beneath a blue umbrella sky Then softer than a piper man, one day it called to you I lost you, I lost you to the summer wind   The autumn...

I'm Gonna Miss You on Valentine's Day When I see all the young lovers together I'm Gonna Miss You on Washington's Birthday 'Cause I told a lie and I lost you I'm gonna feel like an April Fool When April first is due... I don't suppose one in a gazillion folks knows the above song. Mel Tormé wrote it, and you get the gist pretty quickly: he's gonna miss you on Valentine's Day, Groundhog Day, Ramadan, Take Your Daughter To Work Day, you name it. The relationship of February 14th to romance is obvious, Washington's Birthday less so, but the...

...In the pithy summation of Terry Teachout, Alec Wilder "spent his life looking for cracks to fall through". Back in the days when we still had record stores, he didn't quite fit the pop bins or the classical bins or the jazz bins. Which is why, if you're hung up on categorization, it's easier to leave him out of the store altogether. As he himself acknowledged, his compositions "were gunned down by the jazz boys because they had a classical flavor, and they were gunned down by the classical boys because they had a jazz flavor." Still, discriminating persons at...

In 1976, 16-year-old model Babi Christina Engelhardt embarked on a hidden eight-year affair with the 41–year-old filmmaker that mirrors one of his most famous movies. Now, amid the #MeToo reckoning and Allen’s personal scandals, she looks back with mixed emotions on their relationship and its unequal dynamic. Sixteen, emerald-eyed, blond, an aspiring model with a confident streak and a painful past: Babi Christina Engelhardt had just caught Woody Allen's gaze at legendary New York City power restaurant Elaine's. It was October 1976, and when Engelhardt returned from the ladies' room, she dropped a note on his table with her phone...

Exactly three-quarters of a century ago this week the Number One hit in America was not a new record, but an old one. Which was an odd accomplishment, as the concept of "oldies" had yet to be invented. "All Or Nothing At All" had it all in September 1943, but it had had nothing at all for the previous four years. This is the story of how it, and its boy vocalist Frank Sinatra, came out on top... It was June 1939 and the singer Louise Tobin was in her room in the Lincoln Hotel in Manhattan, packing for a...

As the reigning Queen of Sex in Paris for two decades, French brothel-owner Madame Claude offered a secret and forbidden universe of pleasure and high-ranking politicians and celebrities such as John F Kennedy, Muammar Gadaffi, Nelson Rockefeller, and Frank Sinatra. Her stable of girls were no mere prostitutes but what the Madame dubbed as 'swans' from fine French families with brains, charm, and - sex with a very happy ending. So it was in April 1961 that President John F Kennedy came to Paris and desired to sample the pleasures of Madame Claude's swans.

Frank Sinatra died twenty years ago - May 14th 1998. We'll pick out a few musical moments later tonight, but first, as a curtain-raiser and as a Mark at the Movies Sunday bonus, here's a look at Sinatra's film career. He was a memorable actor - and, as Sammy Cahn liked to say, that isn't even what he does: When he died in 1998, the Italians came out for Frank. Robert De Niro said not a day passed when he didn't listen to Sinatra, Martin Scorsese that Sinatra made it possible for all the rest of them - the guys...

Frank Sinatra was the most influential popular singer of the 20th century – not just because of a six-decade career of big hit records, but because his taste in music and the longevity of his success helped shape and expand the American Songbook. Not all icons survive death: I think of Leonard Bernstein or Bob Fosse, both at their passing the most celebrated practitioners in their respective fields, or Bing Crosby, the biggest selling recording artist of all time at the time he left us, and these days little more than a guy who gets played on the holiday channels...

Driven to distraction by the amorous betrayals of her husband, Jackie Kennedy embarked on a wild fling with ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev while she was still in the White House, according to a new tell-all book. Nureyev, who was nine years younger than the First Lady, was also once spotted with Jackie’s brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy ‘kissing each other passionately in a phone box’, the book claims. Much has been written through the years about President Kennedy’s dalliances while in office. His mistresses were famously said to include actresses Marilyn Monroe and Angie Dickinson, mafia moll Judith Exner and a...

EXCLUSIVE - 'She couldn't wait and allowed him to seduce her in a creaky French elevator': Bombshell book reveals Jackie Kennedy's secret lovers, her revenge on JFK with William Holden, her steamy night with Brando and her forbidden affairs with Bobby AND Teddy New book reveals that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a passionate woman who had many men--before, during and after her marriage to JFK Authors say she bedded Hollywood actors Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck and Frank Sinatra, among others Confessed Brando, 'She took matters into her own hands and popped the magic question, ‘Would you like to...

One hundred years ago today - October 15th 1917 - a man called Alan Livingston was born in McDonald, Pennsylvania. You probably don't know his name, and, if you think you know your songwriters, you may be confusing him with his older brother Jay Livingston, who with Ray Evans wrote "Que Sera Sera", "Mona Lisa", "Buttons and Bows" and the urban Christmas song "Silver Bells". Jay's kid brother doesn't have a song catalogue like that, but one way or another we owe a lot of the late 20th century's best known music to him. For one, Alan Livingston was central...

Frank Sinatra told Donald Trump to 'go f*** himself' after the business mogul complained that he was paying too much to feature the singer at the opening of his Atlantic City casino, according to a new book. In 'The Way it Was', due to be released on October 24, Elie Weisman, who managed the Chairman of the Board from 1975 to 1998, recounted the incident, which occurred 1990. Sinatra had planned to perform at the opening of Trump's Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, along with fellow Rat Pack member Sammy Davis Jr and vocal duet Steve and Eydie, reported the...

Ol' Blue Eyes sings "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"... 1957

Cancel any upcoming flights to the moon, because living in Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack home is a great reason to stay on Earth. Named "Villa Maggio," Sinatra's hideaway from Hollywood is on the market for $3.9 million. The Palm Desert, California home was a spot where Sinatra and fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop would hang out and get some R&R from their fans in a private location.

Here is a youtube video of Ronald Reagan hanging out with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG5WAFzwlIA This video has inspired me to make some observations. One of the greatest mistakes conservatives make in analyzing the 1980 election, is to exaggerate the weakness of Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. I am not a Carter-hater, and I think Carter was a better President and stronger leader than several American Presidents, including Obama, Clinton, James Buchanan, etc. To say that Reagan won his election victories because his opponents were weak, is like saying Muhammad Ali became the heavyweight boxing champion of...

Christmas Songs By Frank Sinatra Merry Christmas 2016 Christmas Songs By Frank SinatraChristmas with the Rat Pack is a 2002 album compiling Christmas songs by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Christmas Songs by Sinatra is the name of the third studio album by the American singer Frank Sinatra. It was originally released in 1948 as a 78 rpm Christmas is the time that we spent together sharing emotions . Hear and feel the best Christmas songs . I wish you a peaceful Christmas