Comments: 13

• Rose Colored Glasses from Mount Vernon, OhA bible in a song.
• Philemon Atsianji from Webuye, Kenya Though written and released over five decades ago, the lyrics define the real meaning of life.
• Gloria Grace from Tacoma WaYou never know about a better life until you seek out the happiness of others first. Forget yourself for a time you ll see.
• Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn December 25th 1971, Les Crane performed "Desiderata" on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'...
  At the time the song was at #35 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; three weeks earlier on November 28th, 1971 it had peaked at #8 {for 1 week} and spent 12 weeks on the Top 100...
  It reached #4 on the Canadian RPM 100 Singles chart.
• Barry from Sauquoit, NyNational Lampoon's "Deteriorata" peaked at No. 91 in 1972 and stayed in the Top 100 for four weeks!!!
  
  
  NATIONAL LAMPOON
  10-14-72 #91 4 1. DETERIORATA (C) {PARODY OF "DESIDERATA")
• Barry from Sauquoit, NySadly, Les Crane passed away on July 13th, 2008 in Greenbrea, CA at the age of 74. His birth name was Leslie Stein and he was born on December 3rd, 1933 in New York City...
• Paula from Blairstown, NjMax Ehrmann was in fact a lawyer - he studied both law and philosophy at Harvard, & while there edited Delta Tau Delta's natl publication. He was later elected to its Distinguished Svce Chapter, the highest alumni award. After returning to Terre Haute to practise law, he later served the state as Deputy Attorney for two years. He then worked for some years, not as a traveling salesman but for his brother's manufacturing business. Desiderata was written possibly as early as 1920/21 & copyrighted in 1927, but neither in 1906 or 1936. You can verify this by checking his 1921 diary entry that refers to it & its Jan. 1927 copyright #, 962402. The mix-up about the 17th-c. church came about in the late 1950's when Rev. Frederick Kates, not knowing its origin, included it with some inspirational material for his congregation under the title "The Old St Paul's Church, Baltimore, AD 1692" b/c that was the year the church had originally been founded. People loved it & shared copies of it w/ their friends (w/ the "1692" heading on it), & that's how the "ancient" myth began to spread. Desiderata also later ended up on posters in the 1960's & 70's; it became very popular... apparently, Les Crane first saw it on one of those posters & thought the work was in the public domain.
• Carl from Mandeville, Jamaica"Desiderata" I always love listening to ever since I heared it played from a jukebox in a shop in my small village, when I was still a small lad.
  As an adult it have inspired me to keep peace with myself and others, this have made life and love so wonderful.
• Stormy from Kokomo, InSomeone wrote that Max Ehrmann wrote "Desiderata" in 1906 and was an Indiana lawyer. Not true. Max Ehrmann was a travelling salesman from Indiana during the Depression and he wrote this song in 1936 while staying in a Chicago hotel one night. He wrote it as an uplifting "poem" because of all of the sadness and strife in America due to the Depression. I have an original recording by Les Crane and I even memorized the words and still repeat them every night before I go to bed. I have a poster of the words, but it is incorrectly credited to a 17th century church. I don't know how that happened. (thanks-Stormy Werbe, Kokomo, Indiana)
• Lester from New York City, NyDoes anyone remember Les Crane's TV show. I remember he'd take questions from the audience by pointing a rifle-type microphone at them from his set on stage.
• Howard from St. Louis Park, MnI heard this song a few weeks ago on the local oldies station and it was unbelievable to hear Les Crane's rendition of a now near century-old poem. Let's not forget the gospel-like chorus that sang "You are a child of the universe. No less than the trees and the stars and you have a right to be here."
• Mark from Falls Church, VaDoctor Demento played the National Lampoon spoof a good deal on his radio show back in the day. I still have a tape of a KMEN-FM, Los Angeles show from the mid-1970s.
• Pete from Nowra, AustraliaApparently Les didn't get permission to use the lyrics, not quite sure what happened though

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