Russell Davies - 13/12/2009

Every Sunday Russell Davies presents the history of popular song, spotlighting its greatest exponents. This week, after acknowledging the hazards of Christmas shopping with Nat Cole's I Found A Million Dollar Baby, Russell tries a new approach to celebrating the festive season, borrowing the Jewish Festival Of Lights as a taking-off point. He finds nine songs with a candle theme to them, not all of them obvious by any means. After that we hear two famous recordings, one made exactly 80 years ago, one ten years later and we conclude with a Tom Lehrer classic that returns us to The Festival Of Lights!