Hello I'm Krusty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley. Our castaway this week has written verses which everybody knows. Most of us have

quoted or sung his lyrics to My Fair Lady or Gigi and many other shows and films.

Here's Alan J. Lerner. Now first of all Alan how well

could you look after yourself on a Desert Island? Are you the rugged open-air type who could cope?

Well I never thought of myself as either indoor or outdoor, but I think I'm a survivor. Have you ever done it at camping out?

Oh yes, I did that when I was very young.

Successfully?

Uh, yes.

I woke up one morning with a cow standing on my chest.

But I mean, other than that, I don't remember anything untaught happening.

Would you try to escape? Well I can't imagine the circumstances

that would make me decide that it would be worthwhile to take a chance on dying in order to live because I

never having been faced with that it's very hard to imagine it. Let's get down to

music. What's the first record you've chosen to take with you out of this miserable

allowance of just eight discs? Well, the first one is a song called without a

song. It happens to be a song that I'm immensely fond of it, I think underrated and one of the most

beautiful songs. It came out of the 20s where so much of our best music did,

popular music, and it would certainly be one of the ones I would take with me.

I'll never know what makes the grass so dark?

I only know.

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