Early Christmas music was sung in Latin and theologically pretty heavy – it made its point, but wasn't something people started humming at the beginning of December. It was Francis of Assisi who popularized Christmas songs as we have come to know them. “Carols” were originally simple songs played on flute to which people danced. We don't see much of that anymore!
Christmas carols grew in popularity until the Brits decided to become the official Christmas party-poopers of all time and outlaw them. In 1647 Oliver Cromwell and British Parliament decreed Christmas carols to be “overly democratic” and “unsuitable activity” for the general public. There is nothing like being named a liberal subversive for singing “Away in a Manger!" Fortunately for us - and for the recording industry in general - King Charles II restored both the Stuarts to the throne and Christmas carols to the people.
Of course, many of our popular Christmas songs today have little to do with anything that Francis of Assisi, King Charles II or, for that matter, Oliver Cromwell could identify with Christ’s birth.
One of the most popular – and a personal favorite – is Nat King Cole’s, “The Christmas Song.” According to WCBS – FM, “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” is number six on the list of all-time best Christmas songs. Interestingly enough, it was written by Mel Torme and his friend, Bob Wells, as a way to distract themselves from the summer heat in 1944. Even so, it has a lot of holiday mojo going for it: embers, little tots, reindeer and the basic assurance that everything is right in the world. Still, for my money, it can’t hold a candle to Frank Sinatra’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – currently number sixty four on the same list.
“A Merry Little Christmas” celebrates something very close to many of our hearts at the Christmas season – happiness mixed with a solid shot or two of sadness and melancholy. Hugh Martin wrote the song for the 1943 movie, Meet Me in St. Louis, starring Judy Garland. In the movie, Garland sings to a seven-year-old Margaret O’Brien as they process the sad prospect of moving away from their home. The original lyrics were pretty gruesome:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Pop that champagne cork
Next year we may all be living in New York
No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us no more
But at least we all will be together
If the Lord allows
From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
For the record, Garland refused to sing the original lyrics in the movie and had Martin do a re-write. Sinatra obligated him to make even more changes for his version recorded in the ‘50’s. I haven’t personally heard it, but I wonder if Twisted Sister’s heavy metal version of the song reverts to the original lyrics?
In my opinion, one of the best Christmas carols written in the United States is Edmund Sears’ “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” Sears was a graduate of Harvard and spent most of his life pastoring small churches out east. He wrote the carol at a time when there was a great deal of national tension over the question of slavery. In 1849 the country was also adjusting to the realities of the growing industrial revolution in the north and social chaos caused by the gold rush out west. In that context, Sears wrote:
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wind:
O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.
I don’t know about you, but this is one of those years when some of “life’s crushing load” has given me even poorer posture than normal. In times like these I am especially thankful for the fact that Jesus broke through into time and space. Because He lived and lives there really is rest on the weary road and the angels’ message still speaks today.
P.S. Because I will probably never have another opportunity to share this bit of Christmas trivia: “Jingle Bells” holds the honor of being the first song broadcast from Space. On December 16, 1965 the crew of Gemini 6 reported seeing someone wearing a red suit in polar orbit. They then serenaded mission control with their rendition of the song, complete with bells and an eight-note Hohner "Little Lady" harmonica which they had smuggled on board their spacecraft. Come on! The picture of astronauts shaking bells and playing a small harmonica as their capsule shoots through space HAS to bring a smile to your face!
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