October 4 Dateline

Birthdays

1626 - Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, English statesman who was the second Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and son of the first Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. On his father's death Richard became Lord Protector but lacked authority. He tried to mediate between the army and civil society and allowed a Parliament containing many disaffected Presbyterians and Royalists to sit. Suspicions that civilian councillors were intent on supplanting the army were brought to a head by an attempt to prosecute a major-general for actions against a Royalist. The army made a threatening show of force against Richard and may have had him in detention. He formally renounced power nine months after succeeding.

1814 - Jean-Francois Millet, French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the Realism art movement. (The Complete Works of Jean-Francois Millet. Uploaded by 1st Gallery com. The Pain of Pastoral Life: Millet's Impact on Vincent van Gogh. Uploaded by Fora.tv. Accessed October 4, 2023.)   

1924 - Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter), American Actor and Political Activist. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in almost 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film The Ten Commandments (1956), for which he received his first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. He starred in The Greatest Show on Earth, Secret of the Incas, Touch of Evil, The Big Country, Ben-Hur (1959), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor, El Cid, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and Planet of the Apes. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak against racism, and was an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. He left the Democratic Party in 1971 to become a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston was a five-term president of the National Rifle Association (NRA). 

1941 - Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien), pen name Anne Rampling, A. N. Roquelaure, American Author of gothic fiction, Christian literature, and erotic literature. She is best known for her series of novels The Vampire Chronicles, of which books from it were the subject of two film adaptations, Interview with the Vampire, and Queen of the Damned. Rice has also authored books such as The Feast of All Saints (adapted for television in 2001) and Servant of the Bones, which formed the basis of a 2011 comic book miniseries. Rice has also authored erotic fiction under the pen names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure, including Exit to Eden, which was later adapted into a film. Rice's books have sold nearly 100 million copies, placing her among the most popular authors in recent American history.

1946 - Susan Abigail Sarandon ( (née Tomalin), American Actress and Progressive Political Activist. She has received an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards. Sarandon was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 and received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award in 2006. Sarandon was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Atlantic City, Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo's Oil, and The Client, before winning for Dead Man Walking (1995). She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Client, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress for Dead Man Walking. Sarandon made her Broadway debut in the play An Evening with Richard Nixon and went on to receive Drama Desk Award nominations for the Off-Broadway plays A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking and Extremities. On TV, Sarandon is a six-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee, including for her guest roles on the sitcoms Friends and Malcolm in the Middle, as well as supporting role in the film You Don't Know Jack. She was also nominated for her leading roles as Doris Duke in the film Bernard and Doris (2008) and Bette Davis in the miniseries Feud.

 
Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 4 - On This Day

 

Featured Music:  

 

D. Shostakovich's Cello concerto No. 1 in E-flat major.
Performed by hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra), conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski, performs  Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. Johannes Moser, Violoncello.

Historical Events

1537 - The book of Matthew in the Holy Bible is printed under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew. It is the first complete English Bible which is translated from the original languages.

1582 - The Gregorian calendar is decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, and today this year is followed by October 15 in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland.

Music / Parlor Song

"Tho' the heart be weary, sad the day and long, still to us at twilight, comes love's old sweet song." 

 

A favourite song down memory lane.   

This Victorian parlour song, "Love's Old Sweet Song" was published in 1884 by composer James Lynam Molloy and lyricist Graham Clifton Bingham. The first line of the chorus: "Just a song at twilight", and its title is sometimes misidentified as such. Bingham wrote the lyrics after which various composers set it to music. The successful candidate was James Molloy.

The song was first sung by Antoinette Sterling at a concert at St. James's Hall in London in 1884. It has been recorded by many artists, including John McCormack and Clara Butt. It is alluded to in James Joyce's Ulysses as being sung by Molly Bloom. 

Video below:  "Love's Old Sweet Song (Just a Song at Twilight) J. L. Molloy" YouTube, uploaded by patriciahammondsongs. Accessed October 4, 2025.  Here's another link to a video, sung by Nelson Eddy - "Just a Song at Twilight".  Uploaded by Mac&EddyMagic. Accessed October 3, 2025.  

The song contains two verses and a refrain. 

Love's Old Sweet Song

Music by J.L. Molloy;
words by G. Clifton Bingham

1. Once in the dear dead days beyond recall,
When on the world the mists began to fall,
Out of the dreams that rose in happy throng
Low to our hearts Love sang an old sweet song;
And in the dusk where fell the firelight gleam,
Softly it wove itself into our dream.

Refrain: Just a song a twilight, when the lights are low,
And the flick'ring shadows softly come and go,
Tho' the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song,
comes Love's old sweet song.

2. Even today we hear Love's song of yore,
Deep in our hearts it dwells forevermore.
Footsteps may falter, weary grow the way,
Still we can hear it at the close of day.
So till the end, when life's dim shadows fall,
Love will be found the sweetest song of all.

Refrain: Just a song a twilight, when the lights are low,
And the flick'ring shadows softly come and go,
Tho' the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song,
comes Love's old sweet song.

 

Notable Recordings

• 1932 The Rondoliers and Piano Pals
• 1940 The Mills Brothers - recorded March 22, 1940 for Decca Records (catalog No. 3455B).
• 1950 Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae
• 1954 Bing Crosby recorded the song in 1956 for use on his radio show and it was subsequently included in a CD On the Sentimental Side issued by Collectors' Choice Music (catalog CCM2106) in 2010. Crosby also included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961)
• 1960 Ruby Murray - included in her album Ruby.
• 2011 Celtic Thunder Paul Byrom and Damian Mcginty

Some film appearances: 

• 1923 Love's Old Sweet Song (1923 film) a two-reel short film made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process.
• 1926 The Sea Beast - as the theme in the orchestral score in John Barrymore's film.
• 1935 The Arizonian - played in a show and danced to by Margot Grahame with James Bush and Richard Dix.
• 1939 Broadway Serenade - played on piano by Lew Ayres and sung by Jeanette MacDonald and audience in the Naughty Nineties nightclub.
• 1940 Rebecca - hummed by Joan Fontaine
• 1941 The Farmer's Wife - sung by Patricia Roc
• 1942 Unseen Enemy - sung by Irene Hervey
• 1946 Demobbed - sung by Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth in the garden medley
• 1947 Life with Father - played on piano and sung by William Powell
• 1950 Cheaper by the Dozen - played by the children on various instruments
• 1952 Wait till the Sun Shines, Nellie
• 1952 Belles on Their Toes - sung by Myrna Loy, Jeanne Crain, Debra Paget, Barbara Bates, Robert Arthur and Hoagy Carmichael right after the beach barbecue
• 1975 The Wind and the Lion
• 1990 Awakenings
• 1992 Enchanted April
• 2023 Only Murders in the Building

More trivia:

The song is mentioned in the chorus of Moonlight Bay, a popular song written in 1912.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s "His Last Bow", 1917, brings Sherlock Holmes into service in World War One. Holmes speaks of "The Old Sweet Song", "How often have I heard it in days gone by. It was a favourite of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it."

A comical abbreviated rendition of the song is performed by Miss Cathcart (Mary Wickes) in the Dennis the Menace TV show episode "Grandpa and Miss Cathcart", first aired on October 25, 1959.

In The Wolvercote Tongue, an episode of Inspector Morse, Morse quotes, or perhaps misquotes, from the song, and mentions its title.

In the Little House on the Prairie series' eighth book, These Happy Golden Years, Pa sings the song to Laura on the night before she is to be married.

In the film Very Annie Mary 2001, the song is sung by Jack Pugh (Jonathan Pryce) at the piano, accompanied by the Mayor of Ogw, South Wales (Radcliffe Grafton) in an early scene, accompanying scenes of Annie Mary running to the local chip shop after having cooked a disastrous meal for her father.

In the first act of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," written in 1947, the character of Ann references the lyric "dear dead days beyond recall" when returning to visit her childhood home.

In the 1947 film “Life with Father” William Powell can be seen playing a few bars and singing a portion of the chorus.

In 2023, the song was sung by Jason Veasey in season 3 of the famous television series, Only Murders in the Building. 

 

Resources:

Love's Old Sweet Song. en.wikipedia.org

Love's Old Sweet Song. Lyrics.  Music in the Works of James Joyce. Accessed October 3, 2025.

 

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