It’s Time to Say Goodnight — 1934

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page originally published on 15 September 2013; latest edit: 4 February 2023

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It’s Time to Say Goodnight (m. Henry Hall, w. Kate Gibson) published in 1934

A comment on a YouTube video containing a 1950 Steve Conway recording of “My Thanks To You” (Newell, Gay) says:

After WW2 Radio Luxembourg used Steve’s ‘My Prayer At The End Of The Day’ to end the English transmission replacing Al Bowlly’s ‘It’s Time To Say Goodnight’ both lovely songs.

In the station’s history there were at least two subsequent instances of one of these two songs replacing the other as the closedown tune. First, in 1961 the Conway recording was replaced for a period lasting roughly two years by a new recording of “It’s Time to Say Goodnight” by Connie Francis.* Second, in the final moments of the Radio Luxembourg English service, due to an unexplained mix-up, Conway’s “At the End of the Day” was played as the parting song instead of the original Bowlly recording of “It’s Time to Say Goodnight” as had been planned and announced. The inadvertent switch is noted in the 1989-1992 section of the Wikipedia page on Radio Luxembourg:

The end eventually came for 208 at 3 am GMT on 30 December 1991…with the last record played on AM being Van Morrison’s “In the Days Before Rock and Roll” (chosen mainly because of its mention of the radio station), before “At the End of the Day” (one of their closedown songs) was played heading into the top of the hour (even though DJ Jeff Graham had said that they were going to play the original closedown tune… “It’s Time To Say Goodnight”).**

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Ray Noble and his Orchestra, vocal: Al Bowlly — recorded on 16 February 1934 in London; issued in the UK as the B-side of “Have a Heart,” HMV B-6459, and on HMV EA-1347 in Australia

The B.B.C. Dance Orchestra, directed by Henry Hall, vocal: Les Allen — issued in 1934 on the 78 rpm single (UK) Columbia CB 716, b/w “In Town Tonight”

Maurice Winnick and his Orchestra — “Bedtime Medley” (“It’s Time To Say Goodnight,” “Let’s Put Out The Lights And Go To Sleep,” “Goodnight, I’ll See You In The Morning,” “Goodnight Sweetheart,” “The Sweetest Music This Side Of Heaven”) — recorded, according to the YouTube provider, on 5 November 1937; issued as the B-side of “The Sweetest Music This Side Of Heaven,” on (UK) Parlophone F 803

presently unavailable

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Bert Weedon and his Music For Dancing — issued in May 1959 on the 45 rpm single (UK) Top Rank 45-JAR 123, as the B-side of “Charmaine” (m. Erno Rapee, w. Lew Pollack), and on the 78 rpm single (UK) Top Rank JAR 123, b/w “Charmaine” — produced by Tony Hatch

30 second sample at Amazon.it (complete audio file not yet found)

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Connie Francis — recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 1961*

The Wikipedia Connie Francis page says:

From mid-1961 to mid-1963, Radio Luxembourg closed each day’s broadcasts with “It’s Time to Say Goodnight”, a song Francis had recorded especially for this purpose and which was never officially released until 1996.^[10]

See also:

It’s Time to Say Goodnight — Connie Francis (MP3 audio file in a player at Stephan Konrad’s Radio Luxembourg 208 ©)

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Max Bygraves — part of Medley: Bye Bye Blues / I’ll See You In My Dreams / It’s Time to Say Goodnight / Goodnight Sweetheart, originally released on the 1971 album Sing Along with Max, (UK) Pye Records NSPL 18361

Bryan Smith and the Dixieland Seven — medley with “The Last Waltz,” from the LP An Invitation to Bryan Smith’s Party, (UK) Dansan Records ‎DS 025, released in 1979

peter john — published on 6 October 2015

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* After having displaced Bowlly’s recording of “It’s Time to Say Goodnight,” sometime after WW2, as the regular closedown recording, Steve Conway’s “At the End of the Day” was itself supplanted for a while by a fresh cover of “It’s Time to Say Goodnight” recorded by Connie Francis at Abbey Road Studios in 1961. On a page of the Stephan Konrad website Radio Luxembourg 208 © containing a list of six closedown recordings used during various periods of the station’s history, with all but the Bowlly recording available for listening in an MP3 player at the top, he says the following with regard to the Connie Francis recording:

Due to [station manager] Geoffrey Everitt‘s Idea, this version replaced the Closedown-Song by Steve Conway. Read more about that in Alan Bailey’s book. (see below) I also have a long version of this song, an[d] a so called outtake in which Connie stops singing.

** A footnote on the title “It’s Time To Say Goodnight” at the end of the quoted passage previously led to the topic “wrong tune played at 1440AM closedown?” at The Radio Luxembourg Forum (URL defunct as of 29 August 2017), which contained a brief exchange of posts, dated 26-27 February 2007, in which it was agreed that the “wrong” closedown or sign-off song was played at the conclusion of the final broadcast. The first post of the cited forum topic, which suggests a few possible reasons for the switch, and dead links to the other posts under the topic, may be still seen at the archive.ph archived snapshot http://archive.ph/E40h, which is dated 10 Jul 2012.

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sources and relevant links