‘Beside A Garden Wall . . .’

The Texas Gal and I were catching up on the Netflix series The Crown the other evening, and the episode “Annus Horribilis” included the tale of Princess Margaret – the sister of Queen Elizabeth II – and her brief reunion during the 1990s with Peter Townsend, the man she had hoped to marry forty-some years earlier. 

(The two were not allowed to marry in the 1950s because he had been divorced, and the Church of England – of which Elizabeth was the head – forbade either divorce or remarriage after divorce. Or perhaps both. I’m not certain.) 

During the scenes leading up to the reunion and during that brief reunion – with a dance shared by the two – the soundtrack offered “Stardust” by Hoagy Carmichael. As the song played, the Texas Gal murmured “I’ve never heard ‘Stardust’ before. I mean, I’ve heard the title, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard the song.” 

That surprised me, and I just said that I’ve heard many versions of the song. And I’ve dug into its history a little. The first version of the song was a 1927 instrumental – released in 1928 – credited to Hoagy Carmichael & His Pals. Carmichael added lyrics to the song a year later, and in 1942, he recorded the version that I think was used in The Crown:

As is the case with many of the songs in what is sometimes called the Great American Songbook, I was introduced to “Stardust” by trumpeter Al Hirt, finding it on his 1965 album That Honey Horn Sound. Hirt, of course, is only one of the literally hundreds of people to cover the song since its 1927 debut. The website Second Hand Songs lists 1,057 versions of the tune. That list is probably not complete, but it’s a good place to start. 

The first cover listed there is an instrumental by the Chocolate Dandies from 1929, and the most recent is an instrumental version by reed player Charlie Gabriel, recorded in February this year for Gabriel’s album 89. The first vocal version listed at Second Hand Songs was recorded in April 1931 by Chester Leighton & His Sophomores. And to round things out, the most recent vocal version was recorded in 2021 by Lina Nyberg and Daniel Karlsson for the album The Night and the Music. 

As I said, I’ve heard many versions of “Stardust” over the years. Which versions do I like the best? Well, three come to mind: Nat King Cole’s cover from 1956, Willie Nelson’s version from 1978, and Crystal Gayle’s cover from her 2004 album Crystal Gayle Sings The Heart & Soul Of Hoagy Carmichael. But I imagine my favorite will always be the one that I heard when I was 12, Al Hirt’s sweet take on the tune (with help from the Anita Kerr Singers):