Television personality
Merv Griffin sings, off camera, "A Soft Day" as the program begins, between the acts, and at the end. The words are from the poem by Winifred Mary Letts (1882-1972) and included in her 1913 book "Songs From Leinster". Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) set the poem to music along with five other Leinster poems. Included in the program's introduction on the 2009 Criterion DVD, and (judging from the copyright dates on the DVD) evidently recorded about 1981, Merv and author
James Costigan talk about the song and the production.