[On July 30, 1942, Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” was released. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Crosby’s classic and other Christmas and holiday songs, for a little flavor of the season here in mid-summer!]
On the two
versions of the holiday revealed by two 1930s hits.
Pinning
down the “first” version of classic Christmas songs can sometimes be an
exercise in historical ambiguity to be sure. While jazz legend Benny Goodman
and his orchestra put out a very early and justifiably famous recording of “Jingle Bells” in 1935,
for example, the lyrics to that classic carol go back much further, at least to
James
Lord Pierpont’s 1857 song “The
One Horse Open Sleigh” (that Pierpoint was sufficiently dreaming of a white
Christmas that he would go on to serve in and write marching songs for
the Confederate army is just one of those profoundly American ironies). But
nonetheless, Goodman’s recording is an important milestone in the song’s
development into an American holiday anthem—and that 1935 timing coincidentally
locates “Jingle Bells” in close proximity to a Christmas classic with timing
that we can pin down much more concretely: “Winter Wonderland,” which was written
in 1934 by composer Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard B. Smith and
recorded that same year by
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.
Moreover,
the two songs are connected by more than just that close chronological
proximity. “Wonderland” opens with the lines “Sleigh bells ring, are you
listening?/In the lane, snow is glistening,” locating its speaker and audience
in very much the same world as the “we” who in “Jingle Bells” are “Dashing
through the snow/In a one-horse open sleigh” with its “bells on bobtails
ring[ing].” Given that “Wonderland” was written in the 1930s, a time when
automobile horns were much more likely to be heard on most American lanes than
sleigh bells—even in more rural America, the dominance
of the car had certainly arrived by this time—that opening reference would
seem to be a purposeful anachronism, a throwback to a 19th century
world when it was most likely a horse-drawn sleigh that would carry us to
holiday gatherings. Neither Bernard (born in 1897) nor Smith (born in 1901) had
necessarily experienced that world, at least not in its prime, so it’s fair to
say that the “beautiful sight” of that opening chorus (repeated in the song’s
final chorus) is in their mind’s eye, this imagined version of the wintry
holiday world of “Jingle Bells” and its ilk.
While they
thus start in a very similar place, however, “Jingle Bells” and “Winter
Wonderland” ultimately take very different tacks, reflecting two distinct cultural
meanings of the holiday. “Jingle Bells” stays entirely in its present moment—it’s
not only “fun to ride and sing/A sleighing song tonight,” but the song itself
metatextually (perhaps the first time that word has ever been applied to “Jingle
Bells”; that’s why they pay me the big bucks) and thoroughly locates its
listeners within that nighttime sleigh ride. This is a celebration of the
holiday’s relaxing and rejoicing qualities, of how living in the moment can “mak[e]
spirits bright.” “Winter Wonderland,” on the other hand, starts with its two
lovebirds “happy tonight” as well, but it soon and consistently makes clear
that it is the future about which they are most excited, particularly in the
song’s best verse: “Later on, we’ll conspire/As we dream by the fire/To face
unafraid/The plans we have made/Walking in a winter wonderland.” This is the
version of the holidays where, as one year ends and another begins, we can
reflect on where we’ve been (“the bluebird”), greet what’s to come (“a new bird”),
and walk together into a new year that just might be
better than the last.
Next
holiday song tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other holiday songs you’d analyze?
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