- Composer or tradition it comes from
- Year or time period it’s from
- Who recorded it and why?
- Was the song written for a special occasion?
- Has it been included in any special collections?
Every year, before summer is scarcely cold in her September grave, people begin proclaiming that “the holidays are upon on them”. It starts innocently enough – a little Labor Day here, a little Thanksgiving there – but before we know it Jack Frost is nipping at our noses and we can’t go in a department store without hearing an endless deluge of Christmas music. Some folks love it; all those chipper, campy tunes simply serve to get them in to the spirit of the season. Others, however, would gladly do without mass media’s musical preoccupation with Santa Claus and “chestnuts roasting on an open fire”.
Either way, Christmas music is an undeniable part of the holiday season. A prime example of this is the traditional high school Christmas concert. These events are annual, usually centered around the performing members of a school’s band and choir. My school, Black Rock High, was no exception. Our Christmas concert was held November 31st and was considered by most attendees to be a great success. A tasteful, unsurprising set list included: “O Come Little Children”, “Jolly Old Saint Nick”, “Up On the Housetop”, “Santa Clause is Coming to Town”, “Deck the Halls”, and “Jingle Bells”.
O Come Little Children
Based on the nineteenth-century German song, “Ihr Kindelein, kommet” (“O Come, Little Children”). Christoph Von Schmid (1768-1854) was a German Roman Catholic priest and schoolmaster, authored this carol approximately 1850. The verses were set to a melody by Johann Abraham Peter Schultz (1747-1800).
Christmas is, above all, a children’s holiday, and many hymns are addressed to children, reminding them that the real reason for the sugarplums and Christmas trees is the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child. Christoph yon Schmidt, who wrote the words to this carol, was known in his native Germany for the books on morals and religion that he wrote for children. The melody was written by Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, himself a child prodigy who at 15 went to Berlin to study under Johann Philipp Kirnberger, an organist who had been a student of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Jolly Old Saint Nick
The origin of “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” is not entirely clear although it was probably written in the mid nineteenth century and is one of the first songs in which Santa Claus was a prominent figure. Because of its similarity to “Up on the Housetop” many people believe it was written by Benjamin Hanby.
Benjamin Russell Hanby (July 22, 1833 – March 16, 1867) was an American composer who wrote approximately 80 songs, the most famous of which are “Darling Nelly Gray” and the Christmas song “Up on the Housetop”.
Up On the Housetop
“Up On a Housetop” is a Christmas song written by Benjamin Hanby in 1864 in the town of New Paris, Ohio. [1]. It has been recorded by Gene Autry, Cass County Boys, King Sisters & Carl Cotner’s Orch. in 1953 on Columbia J4-176(45rpm) / J-176(78rpm). This came with a colorful picture sleeve.
In 1992, a syndicated television special of the same name, produced by Perennial Pictures Film Corporation in Indianapolis, Indiana was released. Co-writer/co-producer/co-director G. Brian Reynolds also was the voice of Curtis Calhoun, and also composed the musical score. His creative partner, Russ Harris, co-wrote, co-produced, co-directed and also did voiceover work in this special.
The special is the story of Curtis Calhoun, a miserable man who wishes that there were no Santa Claus. But then on Christmas Eve, someone is on top of the Calhouns’ roof, and Curtis doesn’t know if he’s Saint Nick or a cat burglar.
In 2005, the song was brought back to life with a new recording by Kimberley Locke. The recording broke a Billboard record when it made the largest leap into the Top 5 in the AC chart’s history, moving from 32 to 5 in only a week. It was also the second longest Billboard holiday AC chart topper in the chart’s history, sitting at #1 for 4 consecutive weeks.
Covered by: George Strait, The Jackson 5, Jimmy Buffet, and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
It was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, and was first sung on Eddie Cantor‘s radio show in November 1934. It became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas.
The earliest known recorded version of the song was by banjoist Harry Reser and his band on October 24, 1934 (Decca 264A) featuring Tom Stacks on vocal, the version shown in the Variety charts of December 1934. The song was a sheet music hit, reaching #1. The song was also recorded on September 26, 1935, by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra [1].
The song is a traditional standard at Christmas time, and has been covered by numerous recording artists. In 1970 Rankin-Bass produced an hour-long animated television special based on the song, with narrator Fred Astaire telling the original story of Santa Claus.
Recorded by: Cyndi Lauper, Frank Sinatra, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Alan Jackson, Aerosmith, Lynard Skynard, and The Temptations.
Christmas Eve Canon
Deck the Halls
“Deck the Halls” (original English title: “Deck the Hall”) is a traditional Yuletide and New Years’ carol. The “fa-la-la” refrains were probably originally played on the harp. The tune is dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, Nos Galan. In the eighteenth century Mozart used the tune to “Deck the Halls” for a violin and piano duet. The repeated “fa la la” is from medieval ballads and used in Nos Galan, the remaining lyrics are American in origin dating from the nineteenth century.
- Cold is the man who can’t love,
- Fa la la la la, fa la la la,
- The old mountains of dear Wales,
- Fa la la la la, fa la la la,
- To him and his warmest friend,
- Fa la, Fa la, fa la la,
- A cheerful holiday next year,
- Fa la la la la, fa la la la.
The tune is that of an old Welsh air, first found in a musical manuscript by Welsh harpist John Parry Ddall (c. 1710–1782), but undoubtedly much older than that. The composition is still popular as a dance tune in Wales, and was published in the 1784 and 1794 editions of the harpist Edward Jones’s Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards. Poet John Ceiriog Hughes wrote the first published lyrics for the piece in Welsh, titling it “Nos Galan” (“New Year’s Eve”). A middle verse was later added by folk singers. In the eighteenth century the tune spread widely, with Mozart using it in a piano and violin concerto and, later, Haydn in the song “New Year’s Night.”
Originally, carols were dances and not songs. The accompanying tune would have been used as a setting for any verses of appropriate metre. Singers would compete with each other, verse for verse — known as canu penillion dull y De (“singing verses in the southern style”). The church actively opposed these folk dances. Consequently, tunes originally used to accompany carols became separated from the original dances, but were still referred to as “carols”. The popular English lyrics for this carol are not a translation from the Welsh. The connection with dancing is made explicit in the English lyrics by the phrase “follow me in merry measure” as “measure” is a synonym for dance. A collection of such sixteenth and seventeenth century dances danced at the Inns of Court in London are called the Old Measures. Dancing itself having been previously suppressed by the church was revived during the renaissance beginning in fifteenth century Italy .
During the Victorian re-invention of Christmas it was turned into a traditional English Christmas song. The first English version appeared in The Franklin Square Song Collection, edited by J.P.McCaskey in 1881
An adaptation of “Deck the Halls” was recorded by country music group SHeDAISY that was made for their Christmas studio album Brand New Year and was featured in the Disney animated film Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas. The music video features scenes of the movie. The single was released on November 9, 1999.
Jingle Bells
“Jingle Bells” is one of the best-known and commonly sung winter songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) and published under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh” in 1857. Even though it is commonly refered to as a Christmas song, it was actually written and sung for Thanksgiving.[1] It was mistakenly branded as a Christmas song because being extremely popular at Thanksgiving, it was sung again around Christmas.
“Jingle Bells” was first recorded by the Edison Male Quartette in 1898 on an Edison cylinder as part of a Christmas medley entitled “Sleigh Ride Party”. In 1902, the Hayden Quartet recorded “Jingle Bells”.
In 1943, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded “Jingle Bells” as Decca 23281 which reached No. 19 on the charts and sold over a million copies. In 1941, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra with Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, Ernie Caceres and the Modernaires on vocals had a No. 5 hit with “Jingle Bells” on RCA Victor, as Bluebird 11353. In 1935, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra reached No. 18 on the charts with their recording of “Jingle Bells”. In 1951, Les Paul had a No. 10 hit with a multi-tracked version on guitar. In 1955, Don Charles, from Copenhagen, Denmark, recorded a novelty version with dogs barking to the melody of “Jingle Bells” as RCA 6344, which sold a million copies. In 1966, Dean Martin recorded the song for “The Dean Martin Christmas Album”. A version credited simply to “St. Nick” called “Jingle Bells (Laughing All the Way)” features someone laughing (rather than singing) the entire song.
“Jingle Bells” has been performed and recorded by Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Drake Bell, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, The Hoppers, En Vogue, Boney M, Longines Symphonette and Ann Hampton Callaway, Basshunter, Diana Krall, S.K.Y., Hydrogen Oxide, among many others. In 2006, Kimberley Locke had a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with a recording of “Jingle Bells”. A recording by Tony Bennett appeared on a special edition of A Swingin’ Christmas (2008), exclusive to the retailer Bloomingdales.
“Jingle Bells” was the first song broadcast from space, in a Christmas-themed prank by Gemini 6 astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra. While in space on December 16, 1965, they sent this report to Mission Control: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit… I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit….” The astronauts then produced a smuggled harmonica and sleighbells and broadcast a rendition of “Jingle Bells.”[7] The harmonica, shown to the press upon their return, was a Hohner “Little Lady”, a tiny harmonica approximately one inch long, by 3/8 of an inch wide.
