Local radio station WBBQ (104.3) continues the tradition of changing its format to play all Christmas music during the holiday season; however, once upon a time, the jingly, jangly nods to Yule time were all that could be found across the radio dial in the month of December.
Some Christmas releases, such as “Last Christmas” by Wham! became instant classics the moment that the records were pressed, while others like “All I want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey have become the punchlines for memes. Other songs have re-emerged as controversial for not aging well in the minds of some.
Regardless of whether they are loved or loathed, Christmas songs remain the soundtrack to the holidays and are big business for the recording industry.
With Christmas being a mostly religious holiday, it is natural that secular Christmas music would have its roots in the celebration of Christs’ birth
It is believed that “The 12 Days of Christmas” is the first modern secular hit Christmas song to be composed. However, according to Christianity.com, the recognized 1780 version was actually printed as a poem with no musical notation and was based off much earlier works that date back possible as early as the 6th Century CE.
While Jesus Christ is not mentioned by name in the song, it is easy to make the connection that all of the gifts from the “true love” tie-in to the spiritual message of the holiday with the six geese representing the creation in Genesis, the four calling birds referring to the New Testament gospels, the three French hens symbolizing the Trinity and, of course, the partridge in a pear tree being Jesus himself.
It was the Victorians that began to blend the family and friendship message into the religious narrative and while some secular songs began to appear in the song list for carolers, but songs such as “Away in a Manger” and “What Child is This?” remaining popular.
When recorded music came along, owning a Victrola was for the wealthy and one could always tell where the parties were happening by looking for the children braving the cold and hanging out below the window sills to listen to the festivities going on inside.
It was the mid 1940s when recorded Christmas music really took off when Bing Crosby released the classic “White Christmas,” a song that remains at the top of holiday charts today and was the best selling single of all time for over 50 years.
One thing that is so special about the Crosby recording of the Irving Berlin classic is the warmth of the crooner’s voice coming from the speakers. Most people today do not know that the entire recording was made with Crosby singing live in front of an orchestra and captured by only a handful of microphones. The warmth of the recording is a testament to the highly trained ears of the sound engineers and really cannot be replicated with multi-tracks or ProTools software.
By the 1970s, Christmas music became huge earners for the record companies to the degree that the companies would tack on a Christmas recording to the end of an already released album to “bump up” sales during the holiday season.
During that period, it seemed that everyone had their own Christmas releases, even some people who weren’t known as musical talents, such as John Schnieder, of “The Dukes of Hazzard” fame, who released an album of Christmas songs to capitalize on his heartthrob status.
There were also some unlikely vocal pairings that would create Yuletide classics. In what was originally considered to be the oddest pairing of them all was David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy.”
At the time, Bowie was known for his avant garde music and androgynous attire, in stark contrast to Crosby’s straight-laced wholesomeness; however, the pairing worked and the song remains a classic to this day.
Christmas music has also become a bit of a reflection of how social mores change over time. The hit from 1949, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was considered a sweet and sentimental song until the “Me Too” movement co-opted the tune as the epitome of toxic masculinity.
Meanwhile, the song “Santa Baby” has suggestive lyrics involving crass commercialism and overt sexual themes; however, since that song was covered by Madonna, it seemed that no one bats an eye.
…And that is something you may not have known.
