Christmas Fails to Strike a Chord With Modern Songwriters

Every year around Christmas, Dad made like Der Bingle.

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas/Just like the ones I used to know.”

Man, that’s a good song and Dad loved singing it. It was a song out of his generation, written by Irving Berlin during World War II and instantly ingrained in the popular culture by Bing Crosby’s rendition of it.

So now it’s 1992 and what song from my generation am I supposed to sing to my kid (assuming I could sing and that I had a kid)?

Would I tuck in Junior and lull him to sleep with Bobby Helms’ “Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock/Jingle around the clock....”

I think not.

What about movies? “It’s a Wonderful Life” shows up on TV for the hundredth time, and I watch it for the hundredth time.

I could barely make it once through “Scrooged.”

Think of Crosby. Think of Mel Torme. Think of Andy Williams. All were pop music stars, but they’re all also associated with a Christmas song.

Has anyone in the last generation or so come to be associated with any Christmas song? The closest we can come is Springsteen doing a rockin’ version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” in concert. Or have I missed something? Has Madonna done a version of “Little Drummer Boy” that I haven’t heard? Or maybe “2 Live Crew: The Christmas Album” hasn’t hit the record stores yet.

Hey, people, can’t we contribute a classic or two to the Christmas culture?

I ran this idea around the office, and the best comebacks I got were Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” for music and “Home Alone” for movies. Even if I concede “Jingle Bell Rock,” it’s still 35 years old.

And “Home Alone” is a Christmas movie? Ok, I never saw it, but I thought it was about a 10-year-old knocking a couple crooks on their cans for 90 minutes. This is what we’re stacking up against “Miracle on 34th Street?”

Jon Wiener, a history professor at UC Irvine with a particular interest in recent American culture, says I may be too harsh in my judgment. He submits Elvis Presley’s recording of “Blue Christmas” as a contribution to the Christmas lore.

“An absolute classic,” he said. And will it stand the test of time, I asked. “It already has,” Wiener said.

Wiener, who has done extensive research on several rock stars of this generation, also cites John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” and Otis Redding’s “Merry Christmas, Baby.”

Gee, Jon, are you sure about those being standards? “I’m almost 50 and these are the ones I listen to,” Wiener said. “I consider myself a mainstream white male.”

I went to another music expert, Dr. Demento.

The good doctor can be heard Sunday nights on KLSX-FM and, along with a reputation for playing wacky songs, is esteemed for his extensive knowledge of music history.

“I don’t know about anything in the last 10 years,” Demento said, when I asked about potential Christmas classics. “There were some good ones as late as the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. “Little Drummer Boy” and “Do You Hear What I Hear” were both from the late ‘50s.

“It could be that people are no longer writing songs in the style of music that’s compatible” with our traditional notion of Christmas music, Demento said. The songwriting style of the 1940s and 1950s was more in sync with Christmas music, he suggested.

Demento said the most popular new Christmas song in recent memory is a 1979 offering, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

Case closed. Demento then confirmed my feeling even more by saying he’s not going to play “Grandma” on his show this Christmas season. “It annoys more people than it pleases,” he said.

First rule: True classics don’t annoy more people than they please.

“White Christmas” caught on pretty quickly, Demento said. “It was a touching thing. If you can imagine a soldier stationed overseas, like in the South Pacific, and dreaming of a white Christmas, it was a very poignant image.”

Demento also noted that as late as the mid-’60s, “for about a month before Christmas, Top 40 stations played heavy doses of Christmas music throughout the broadcast day, increasing as it got closer to Christmas. When “Little Drummer Boy” came out, it was played 10 times a day on a Top 40 station. Now, (Christmas songs) are restricted to certain spots, once an hour or a couple days before Christmas or maybe even just the morning shows. Few do them all day, so perhaps there’s limited exposure to newer Christmas songs.”

Maybe we have all the great Christmas songs we need. You’re not going to improve on “White Christmas” or “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or, for that matter, “Frosty the Snowman.”

But you would think a generation that gave us the rock era and some memorable movies might have taken a moment or two to add to the historic Christmas catalogue.

But it has, some would argue.

We’ll see. By definition, it takes time for most things to become classics, “White Christmas” notwithstanding.

So, I’ll just end by smugly saying that I’m familiar with “Blue Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”

I’ve sung along with “Blue Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”

I like “Blue Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”

But, they’re no “White Christmas.”