Ronald D. Lankford - Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights: A Cultural History of American Christmas Songs

Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
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University of West Florida, Pensacola

UNIVERSITY
PRESS OF FLORIDA

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Ronald D. Lankford Jr.

A Cultural History of American
Christmas Songs

Copyright 2013 by Ronald D. Lankford Jr.
All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America. This book is printed on Glatfelter Natures Book, a paper certified under the standards of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). It is a recycled stock that contains 30 percent
post-consumer waste and is acid free.

This book may be available in an electronic edition.

18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lankford, Ronald D., Jr., 1962
Sleigh rides, jingle bells, and silent nights : a cultural history of American
Christmas songs / Ronald D. Lankford Jr.
pages cm
Summary: The first full examination of popular American Christmas
music and its deeper connections to American culture.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-4492-7 (alk. paper)
1. Christmas musicUnited StatesHistory and criticism.
2. Carols, EnglishUnited StatesHistory and criticism. I. Title.
ML2881.U6L36 2013
782.4217230973dc23 2013015087

University Press of Florida
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To
Elizabeth C. S. Lankford

The American
Christmas Song

Nostalgia:
Home for Christmas

Santa Claus:
A Bag Full of Toys

Carnival:
Beneath the Mistletoe

The Blues and Hard Times:
An American Carol

Satire:
Surviving Christmas

Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights

FIGURE 1.1. White Christmas, 1954. Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby. By permission of Paramount Pictures/Photofest.

The
way in which
Christmas has been
defined in America reveals
much about our values.
Alan Dundes,
Christmas as
a Reflection of American
Culture

Our
hit-parade
tunes and our jazz are
quite as representative of our
inner lives as any old ballad is of a
past way of life. As such, these popular
expressions, even though produced by
skillful technicians, are a valuable means
of taking stock of our success or failure in
developing a balanced existence.

Marshall McLuhan, The
Mechanical Bride

Music
has been, is,
and will continue to be an
integral part of our daily lives. It
is vital to our beliefs, our rituals, our
work and our play. It is both a reflection
of and a formative part of the fabric and
needlepoint of our culture and history.

Timothy E. Scheurer, American
Popular Music, volume 1

While the list didnt include every popular holiday song (it included only songs published by ASCAP), it did offer a good snapshot of the kinds of songs that have sustained popularity with American listeners. What was perhaps most surprising at the time was how little the holiday song market had changed in sixty to seventy years: familiar Christmas classics, both in their original and rerecorded versions, dominated the list. Seventeen of the twenty-five songs were first introduced between 1934 and 1954; another five between 1955 and 1964. One song, the Carol of the Bells, has multiple originspopular lyrics were added in 1947 to the 1904 Ukrainian composition. The two newer songs date from 1970 and 1984.

Several songs remain popular in versions by their original performers. Bing Crosby, for instance, remains on the ASCAP list with White Christmas (#5), Gene Autry with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (#10), and Nat King Cole with The Christmas Song (#1). Bobby Helms continues to be associated with Jingle Bell Rock (#6) and Brenda Lee with Rockin Around the Christmas Tree (#14). The original version of The Little Drummer Boy (#8) by the Harry Simeone Chorale and Orchestra remains the most popular as does Burl Ivess version of Holly Jolly Christmas (#18), Andy Williamss Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (#11), and Jos Felicianos Feliz Navidad (#15). From White Christmas in 1942 to Feliz Navidad in 1970, these songs represent a rich mine of Christmas music history that remains, to millions of listeners, contemporary.

Newer versions of these classic Christmas songs, versions recorded later than the original issue or hit, are equally represented on the ASCAP list. Most of these, however, were versions recorded before the time period in question, 20012005. In other words, while many of these rerecorded songs are newer than the original versions, they nonetheless qualified as older, favored versions of classic Christmas songs that have remained popular.

FIGURE 1.2. Nat King Cole, ca. 1947. Black and white negative. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress.

The Pretenders Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (#2), the Eurythmics Winter Wonderland (#3), Madonnas Santa Baby (#25), and John Mellencamps I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (#20) were all issued in 1987 on A Very Special Christmas (one of a series of compilations that raised money for Special Olympics). Elvis Presleys Blue Christmas (#16) and Here Comes Santa Claus (#22) date from 1957, while the Ronettes Sleigh Ride (#9) dates from 1963.

While the ASCAP list evinces a strong connection to yesteryear, it also reveals a less tangible result: these songs, in both old and new versions, remain vital to the American celebration of Christmas. Americans, the list suggests, cannot imagine celebrating Christmas without their favorite holiday songs performed by their favorite singers: without Blue Christmas and Elvis, without White Christmas and Bing Crosby, it would not be, to millions of Americans, officially Christmas.

Why did these songs play such a vital role within an American Christmas during the 1940s and 1950s, and why do they (especially since the 1980s) continue to evoke nostalgia for a lost time and place today? Perhaps the most obvious reasonthough a reason that clarifies littleis that we simply like Christmas songs and have gotten into the habit of listening to them from Thanksgiving to New Years. Many of us have grown up within a Christmas tradition or a culture that places great importance on that tradition, making it difficult to avoid holiday music, even if we wished to do so. As children, we listened to our parents favorite holiday albumsperhaps Johnny Mathiss