‘Wonderland’ is the sound of the season

The turkey is in the Tupperware, so prepare for the full onslaught of holiday music. And what Christmas song will be the most played this season on American radio? If recent history holds, it will be “Winter Wonderland,” that sparkling classic written 73 years ago.

“Winter Wonderland” in its many varied permutations has been the most played Christmas song over the last five years, according to ASCAP, the performing-rights organization and co-owner of Mediaguide, which monitors 2,600 radio stations.

Although “White Christmas” remains the most-recorded holiday standard, the recent airplay crown goes to the other old favorite that evokes an ivory pastoral image: “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane snow is glistening . . . “

Founded in 1914, ASCAP is the world’s largest repository of copyrighted music with more than 8.5 million works. That includes the vast majority of American seasonal classics, but not songs of worship that are far older, such as “O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles),” or works registered with rival BMI, among them “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The ASCAP vault, though, is clearly the Santa’s workshop of holiday classics.

“Winter Wonderland” was written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith and was a hit for Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians. “Winter Wonderland” opened a new national era of holiday hits, according to “Christmas in the Charts: 1920-2004,” Joel Whitburn’s compilation of Billboard chart data.

The 1930s and 1940s were a golden era for Christmas songs and they clearly still resonate; the ASCAP list shows that only one song written after 1950 was among the 10 most-played (and that one wasn’t exactly new -- it was “Jingle Bell Rock,” first released in 1957). After “Wonderland,” the top Christmas songs on the ASCAP list are “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “White Christmas.” Looking at the Top 20, there’s further proof that they just don’t write them like they used to: There are only three penned after 1960 and only one, “Feliz Navidad” (1970), written after the Kennedy assassination.

New isn’t always better, as proven by “Wonderland,” which has been recorded by scores of artists, among them Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, the Carpenters, the Judds, Glenn Miller, Eurythmics, Clay Aiken, Jewel, Aimee Mann, Wynton Marsalis, Perry Como, Cyndi Lauper, Air Supply, Stryper, the Cocteau Twins as well as Alvin & the Chipmunks.

--

geoff.boucher@latimes.com