Pieces of the Past — Tunes

What would Christmas be without Christmas songs? Like the precious decorations wrapped carefully in tissue yellowed with age, the sounds of the season start swirling around us.

Hymns like Silent Night have been woven into the fabric of Christmas for centuries. Silent Night was written by Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber in Austria, Mohr wrote the poem and Gruber wrote the tune for guitar because their church had been flooded and their organ was out of commission.

There have been many modern Christmas songs. Perhaps one of the most interesting is “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Johnny Marks, a Bronze Star medal winner from World War II wrote it. Teenager Brenda Lee sang it. It finally hit No. 1 on the charts after more than 60 years! Mariah Carey wrote and performed “All I Want for Christmas.” That song has made it onto the charts 10 years in a row!

Another modern song that has become a “standard” was written by Billy Hayes, featuring Dudley Brooks on the keyboard, D.J. Fontana on drums, Bill Black on Bass, with Scotty More on lead guitar. Oh yes, Elvis Presley on lead vocals. Blue Christmas has been on the Billboard Hot 100 every Christmas since 1957. I was 6 when that came out!

This all started when I told someone that Willie Nelson wrote the song “Silver Bells.” I remember playing the 45′ of it and his name was on the label. Well, he arranged it, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans were the writers. “White Christmas” is one of only a handful of songs that were originally nothing more than a song for a movie. The movie was shot in the summer. It wasn’t until the soundtrack of the song came out as a single a full year after the movie that it exploded into a tradition.

I always thought that Gene Autry wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Nope. Robert L. May did. Autry wrote and sang “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

The music that surrounds the holidays is as much of a tradition as Christmas gifts under a tree. By the way, the decorated tree goes back to St. Boniface who used the triangular shape of the fir tree to symbolize the Holy Trinity.