Someone to Watch Over Me

Soul Music

BBC

Personal Journals, Music Commentary, Society & Culture, Music

4.7 • 772 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh Kay, Someone To Watch Over Me has endured as a tender ballad about searching for someone special. It has been recorded by many different artists from Ella Fitzgerald to Willie Nelson but it's perhaps Ella's version that is best known. Lyn Mackay grew up listening to it as a small child at her parents' home in Swansea. As she grew up and became a musician and entertainer the song has changed its meaning to her over the years. Nica Strunk heard her father singing it during one of their sessions at his piano. As he sang the line "where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?" she began to understand the difficulties he faced in expressing his emotions and the song brought them closer together. Nicholas McInerny loved Sarah Vaughan's version and his daughter sang it at his second wedding. Music producers James Morgan and Juliette Pochin have been Ella Fitzgerald fans since they met as students and are thrilled to have been behind the most recent release of Someone To Watch Over Me using Ella's original vocals accompanied by the LSO.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.
0:05.2	My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.
0:11.3	It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,
0:16.3	but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.
0:19.6	And because the team is such a diverse
0:21.2	range of skills and strengths, we have trained journalists, people who love digging through
0:26.0	archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice. So if
0:31.8	you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories
0:37.1	from all around the UK. BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK.
0:40.3	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts.
0:49.3	Oh, the piano. Have a guess what name the piano is. No prize is anybody. It's Ella.
0:58.0	Hi, my name is Lynn Mackay. I'm also known as Lynn Lawrence when I perform. I'm a professional and entertainer. And this is my 50th year of entertaining people. These days, I mostly entertain on on cruise ships and I love it. I love
1:14.3	travelling the world, meeting amazing people, going to amazing places all because I can sing
1:19.5	of it. I love a ballad. I like making them cry. I like telling the story. I like gripping them.
1:26.7	I love the challenge of walking into a room that's loud and noisy and making them listen.
1:33.3	My mum and dad loved music. They're a really extensive record collection of old 33's. One of the albums they had, they bought, I think it was 1959. It came out to Ella sings Gershwin.
1:46.3	And every Sunday when my mum was cooking,
1:49.5	and Dad would come in from the garden, that album would go on.
1:58.2	There's a saying, oh, says that love is blind.
2:02.8	Still we're often told seek and ye shall find.
2:07.3	Maybe it was the timbre of her voice and maybe it sounded to me as a little toddler like she was actually telling me a story.
2:13.5	But for some reason, even as a little toddler, I don't know why.
	...

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