Christmas Eve Poetry

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Originally posted December 2017

Without further ado, we’ll listen as Michele Obama reads “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” Clement Clark Moore’s wonderful 1823 poem. Moore didn’t acknowledge his authorship until he published a book of poems in 1844. There’s apparently an ongoing dispute among some literati and academics as to whether he was the actual author. He was quite a character. He got extremely rich subdividing his inherited real estate on Manhattan Island, and he donated the land on which the Episcopal General Theological Seminary now sits as it has since 1827.

The former First Lady read this in 2013. She’s nearly as good an interpretive reader as her husband.

Let’s hear a musical version of the poem performed by Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians. Waring was an interesting character. He was a bandleader, radio and TV personality, and a promoter. He backed the inventor of the Waring blendor to the tune of $25,000, apparently getting the naming rights to the gadget. “…the Waring-owned Miracle Mixer was introduced to the public at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago retailing for $29.75. In 1938, Fred Waring renamed his Miracle Mixer Corporation as the Waring Corporation, and the mixer’s name was changed to the Waring Blendor (the “o” in blendor giving it a slight distinction from “blender”).”

The Chairman of the Board meets another Royal

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Originally posted December 2015

That could only be Frank Sinatra accompanied by Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song,” written by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells on what Tormé claimed was the hottest day of the year back in July of 1945.

Here’s Mark Evanier relating his tale of Mr. Tormé at the Farmers’ Market in LA a long time ago. It’s a very funny story, particularly since the kids hadn’t a clue who the roly-poly guy who offered to sing a verse was.

Here’s the song itself.

Silent Night (there need be no words)

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Originally posted December 2018

Tom Caufield performs an instrumental version of “Silent Night” on guitar. From Wikipedia:

The song was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. He had written the lyrics of the song “Stille Nacht” in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as a co-adjutor.

The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the nearby village of Arnsdorf. Before Christmas Eve, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody and guitar accompaniment for the Christmas Eve mass, after river flooding had damaged the church organ. It is unknown what inspired Mohr to write the lyrics, or what prompted him to create a new carol.

Bing Crosby’s version has sold some 30 million copies, making it the third best-selling single record of all time behind Crosby’s “White Christmas” and Elton John’s tribute to Princess Diana “Candle in the Wind/Something About the Way You Look Tonight.”

A Toonful White Christmas

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Last posted in December 2015

I haven’t posted this in a while (not since 2009, to be exact), and I’d forgotten how cute the cartoon is. The animation was done by cartoonist Joshua Held back in 2002. The song was performed by The Drifters on their Christmas album, released in 1954.

Here’s an interesting note about this version:

“We wanted to do something different with ‘White Christmas’,” Bill Pinkney said in his autobiography, “Drifters 1”. “We did it in a ballad-with-a-beat version that became a big hit. Atlantic [Records] wondered what composer Irving Berlin would think. He surprised everyone when he gave our version his blessings. He really liked it and he contacted Atlantic with a letter of congratulations.”

From one city song to another

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Yesterday it was “city sidewalks” from “Silver Bells,” so let’s have another song about a city.

Originally posted December 2019

Mary Chapin Carpenter sings “Christmas Time in the City,” from her “Come Darkness, Come Light” album. It was released in 2008, so I’ve been promoting it for 14 years and will probably do so for at least that long again, if I live that long. It’s a beautiful album, half original compositions by Carpenter, some with guitarist and co-producer John Jennings. The other six cuts are traditional but seldom heard on commercial radio or Muzak.

City sidewalks…

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Originally posted in December 2008

I hear this song and immediately think of snow falling between skyscrapers, piling up below window displays, and viewed through neon lights (in short, I think of Rockefeller Center in New York). You’d think, given the first line of the song, that people mashing up video would use city street scenes to accompany “Silver Bells.” This is the first one I found which actually did. It’s Dean Martin sounding like he’s had one martini more than was wise.

Local girl does well

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Originally posted December 2012.

This was the first song the duo at the restaurant I had brunch at today played after setting up their ukulele and stand-up bass.

Here’s local girl Bette Midler singing “Mele Kalikimaka” from her 2006 album “Cool Yule”.

The song was written in 1949 by Robert Alexander Anderson, another local. He was born in Honolulu in 1894 and wrote more than 100 songs about the islands. This one and “Lovely Hula Hands” are his most famous compositions.

The first major recording of the song was probably that done by Bing Crosby. He was a regular golf partner of Anderson’s when Bing was in the islands, and Anderson played it for him shortly after writing it. In 1950 Crosby recorded it with The Andrews Sisters and made a present of it to Anderson.

Back to the 16th Century

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Ofiginally posted December 2017

Canadian Loreena McKennitt sings “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” from her “Midwinter’s Night Dream” album released in 2008. It is one of the oldest of the English carols, dating back to at least the 16th century. The first printed version appeared in 1760. It’s even referred to in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol: “… at the first sound of ‘God bless you, merry gentlemen! May nothing you dismay!’, Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.”

McKennitt has used Middle Eastern instruments on her version, a callback to the place where the events being commemorated took place.

Let’s add some jazz to the season

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Originally posted December 2015.

A now-deceased college fraternity brother of mine posted this clip on Facebook earlier in 2015 and I liked it. It’s by a group called Pastiche, friends of Andy’s from his San Francisco days as a DJ. They’ve put out three CDs and worked as backup vocalists for many recording sessions. I’m hearing a little Manhattan Transfer or maybe The Andrews Sisters here.

Apparently in the seven years since they’ve broken up. One of them, Sandy Cressman, has made a new career of interpreting Brazilian jazz in San Francisco.

What sound do the bells on sleighs make?

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Jingle Bells, of course! Yeah yeah, I know. Silly song, nothing to it, right? Well, listen to this instrumental arrangement by Roy Clark, the extraordinary guitarist who died a few years ago.

The song was written by James Lord Pierpont and first published in 1857. Oddly, it was originally intended as a Thanksgiving song, but it evolved. The historians theorize that “jingle” was meant initially as a verb: shake or rattle the reins on the sleigh in order to make its presence known to other sleigh-drivers.