December 16, 2004

The best thing about Christmas music is that it has a three- to four-week life span, so before you grow completely sick of the songs, they’re gone—at least until next year. Holiday musical offerings exist in every genre imaginable, and a new batch is cooked up every year to generate cash flow for somebody somewhere. Most of the current stuff is boring and predictable—either too happy, too rocking, or too sentimental. The traditional elements are severely lacking. And while it might be a stretch to include Christmas favorites like “The Chipmunk Song” and Liberace’s version of “Silver Bells” as anything remotely traditional, they’re among a handful of favorites that keep impostors off my record player this time of year.

“The Chipmunk Song”

(Click Here to listen to this song)

The first time this song made a real impact, with its circus carousel-invoking melody and high-pitched voices singing, “Me, I want a Hula Hoop,” was one July spent at the home of family friends in Cocoa Beach, Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral. (The distant sky would glow through their living room window when rockets were launched at the Cape.) Not being very fond of the water, much less what might be lurking on the ocean floor, I spent much of my vacation time with their teenage daughter’s collection of 45 rpm records. “The Chipmunk Song” soon became my favorite, which made me the object of the girl’s endless ridicule. She repeatedly told me that if I knew anything about music I’d be listening to Nat King Cole’s “Ramblin’ Rose.”

	(click for larger version)

The Chipmunks became a Christmas obsession. The evolution of their creator, Ross Bagdasarian, is an interesting pop music footnote. Bagdasarian, who played a songwriter in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, also composed “Come On-a My House,” the 1951 hit that made Rosemary Clooney a star. (Mitch Miller convinced Clooney to record the song despite her objections that it was a silly novelty tune, a genre in which Bagdasarian proved his expertise during the ensuing decade.) Singing as David Seville, Bagdasarian made the pop charts in 1958 with “The Witch Doctor” (the chorus: “ooh eee ooh ah ah; ting tang wallah wallah bing bang”).

This was Bagdasarian’s first time to experiment with recording himself at normal speed, then speeding up the tape to create what later became a pop phenomenon, The Chipmunks. Bagdasarian’s original notion was that the sped-up recording emulated rabbits and butterflies, until his young children convinced him that the voices sounded like chipmunks. In 1958 he introduced Alvin, Simon, and Theodore singing the Christmas classic, “The Chipmunk Song.”

As an adult, I would probably choose the catalog of Nat King Cole over that of The Chipmunks. But if it comes down to a single song, I’ll take “The Chipmunk Song” over “Ramblin’ Rose” any time of year.

“In the Bleak Mid-Winter”

(Click Here to listen to this song)

The a capella recording of this traditional ode to the tortuous cold of winter by Birmingham’s Independent Presbyterian Church Choir is the most breathtaking version I’ve ever heard. Oddly, the melody first came to me in the form of Muzak at a thrift store in Midfield one Christmas season around 15 years ago. It was the perfect soundtrack for mingling with the lower class in a secondhand clothing and appliance store.

A couple of years later I discovered the IPC Choir’s rendering on their mid-1980s album The Joyous Birth. The composer of “In the Bleak Mid-Winter” was indicated as Gustav Holst. But a recent conversation with retired IPC choirmaster Joseph Schreiber, who directed the choir and played the organ at the church for 34 years (including during recording of the song), revealed shock on his part that Holst and not Harold Darke was listed as the writer. A web search indicated both men listed as the composer, among several others [Darke in 1911, and Holst in 1906]. The lyrics originated half a century earlier in a poem by Christina Rossetti. Still, Schreiber insists that Darke is the true writer. “It’s gorgeous, kind of haunting,” Schreiber describes, obviously touched by the memories of his choir’s performances.

“Haunting” is an understatement. The first couple of phrases, “In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone,” paint a desolate picture that sends chills down the spine when accompanied by the eerie but exquisite melody. As for that Midfield thrift store, now known as America’s Thrift Store, it remains a Christmas favorite as well.

“Silver Bells” by Liberace

(Click Here to listen to this song)

My mother forced piano lessons down my nine-year-old throat, insisting all the way that I would thank her one day. Of course, years later I realized she was right and I was wrong. But before she was right, whenever neighborhood kids found out I was taking piano I was taunted with “You’re a queer like Liberace!” “Am not,” I replied. Nevertheless, the taunts were humbling and embarrassing.

Twenty years later I came to appreciate Liberace, entertained as much by his feminine ways as his sentimental, crescendo-laden runs up and down the keyboard. But what’s so intriguing about his version of “Silver Bells” is his vocal styling. Naturally campy yet irresistibly sincere, his voice is anything but pretty. It’s tough to describe. He sounds so . . . Liberace.

Placido Domingo and The Vienna Choir Boys

(Click Here to listen to the Schubert arrangement of “Ave Maria”)

The Vienna Choir Boys was the first live musical act with which I recall being smitten when I was about eight. A version of the Choir Boys came through Selma one Christmas, and I was forced to attend with my mother because my father refused to go. It was like an epiphany the first time I heard them in person. I was astonished that a bunch of kids my age could sound like angels. Their interpretation of “Silent Night” was stunning.

The recording with Placido Domingo remains a Christmas favorite. They perform both the Bach-Gounod and Schubert renditions of “Ave Maria” in addition to “Adeste Fideles (Oh Come All Ye Faithful).” I had another epiphany while listening to the Choir Boys this Christmas: they sound a lot like The Chipmunks.

All On a Wintry Night by Judy Collins

(Click Here to listen to Collins’ version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”)

I discovered this collection when it was released in Christmas 2000 because I was doing a story on Collins’ performance at the Ritz Theatre in Talladega. Included here are Collins’ lovely originals “Song for Sarajevo (I Dream of Peace)” and a duet with actress Tyne Daly on “In the Bleak Mid-Winter,” a song Collins told me she was not familiar with until Daly brought it to her attention.

Christmas of 2000 was one of the more memorable ones due to the political climate. Controversy surrounding the Florida vote tally after the presidential election consumed attentions usually given to the holiday spirit. Forget peace on earth; it wasn’t even going to exist in America that holiday season. Collins was scheduled to perform in Florida’s Broward County the night after the Talladega concert, and I’ll never forget prompting a hearty laugh from her backstage after the show when I asked to whom she would dedicate “Send in the Clowns” the following evening. &

Staff writer Ed Reynolds thinks The Chipmunks could have been as big as Elvis if they’d only had better management.