December 7, 2023 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Ace Collins is the author of Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. Collins is an ace at song history, and he’s here to introduce you to people you’ve never met, stories you’ve never heard, and meanings you’d never have imagined.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show
and today and around the Christmas season, we bring you
special stories about a special time and the stories behind
the stories of our Christmas traditions. And today we're going
to focus on Christmas songs we love to sing and
(00:32):
these are fascinating stories we hope will enrich your holiday celebration.
Ace Collins is the author of stories behind the best
loved songs of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Collins is an ace at song history, and.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
He's here to introduce you to people you've never met,
stories you've never heard, and meanings you'd never have imagined.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hears Ace.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
One of the best Christmas songs is Oh Holy Night.
Try back almost two hundred years to France, when a
local priest asked a parishioner who was the commissioner of
wines to write a poem for the Christmas Eve service.
He was writing in a carriage on the way to Paris.
He wrote the poem was so impressed with it that
he took it to a friend of his who wrote operas,
(01:18):
and he asked him, can you write music to this poem?
The man read the poem said, it's a beautiful poem,
but I think I'm not the right guy to do it.
He said, no, no, you have this handle on music.
I want you to write it. So he put together
some beautiful music to go with it. It was sung
in a little church in France that evening of Christmas
(01:40):
Eve Mass, and people were so impressed. It became a
tradition in that church, and within five years had spread
clear across France, and then it began to spread across England.
Ironically enough, in about eighteen forty the French church threw
it out of services because they deemed it was too
(02:01):
secular think of a Holy Night being secular. But the
whole point was this, the man who had written the
music to go with the lyrics was Jewish, and they
didn't want a Jewish man's music associated with Christmas. Well,
they didn't stop the English from singing it at Christmas time,
and then it came to the United States in the
(02:22):
eighteen fifties, not as a Christmas song, but as a
part of the abolitionist movement. Because in the third verse
there are a number of lines dealing with chain shall
he break, for the slave is our brother in his name,
all Opprussian shall cease. It was after the Civil War
(02:43):
that this song, Oh Holy Night, which is one of
the most beautiful of all carells, began to be a
part of the caroly movement here in the United States
and was brought into churches. It's also a song that
has two other great stories with it. One the Franco
Prussian War. On Christmas Eve, some French guy jumped out
of a fox hole when sang that song. He was
(03:04):
answered by a German who sang Silent Night, and the
two sides got together and had twenty four hours of
celebrations of Christmas. So it early was the song that
brought peace on earth. Let's go ahead. The nineteen oh
six Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man named Fessenden is working on
doing something that everyone thought was impossible. He is going
(03:25):
to create a transmitter that is so strong it will
broadcast the human voice. Now Marconi even said this was impossible.
Edison said it was impossible. Alexander Graham Bell said, you
can't have a transmitter that can do that, you know.
On Christmas Eve nineteen oh six, Fessisenden tried his new
(03:47):
invention out and people who were in telegraph offices and
ships at sea, and newsrooms and weather bureau suddenly heard
his voice reading the second chapter of Luke rather than
dot dot dash dash. Now imagine what you must have
felt like to hear a human voice coming over these
little speakers when you had been told it was impossible.
(04:10):
Then Felsenden picked up a violin and the very first
song ever played on radio was a Holy Ninth. I
get asked about the Twelve Days of Christmas a great deal.
And there's some controversy with this song. There are some
people that believe that the meaning of the Twelve Days
of Christmas was added after the song was written. It
was not written as anything but a kind of a
(04:32):
silly little Christmas song. And I don't know if it
was written as a code song or if it became
a code song, but I can tell you this, the
Catholic Church did use it. I've talked to Catholic historians.
I've talked in both the United States and Great Britain
as a code song when Catholicism was outlawed by the
(04:52):
Church of England, and this song the Twelve Days of
Christmas therefore had religious meanings that were attached.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
To the lyrics.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Once again, were they written as code or did the
Catholic Church seize upon this and find a way to make.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
It a code.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I think it was written as code, but I don't
know that. You know, the argument's going to go back
and forth on that for eternity. None of us will
ever know which is right and which is wrong. But
I can tell you what the code words in this
were and what they meant. A partridge in a partree.
The partridge is the only bird that will lay down
(05:29):
its life for its nest. That partridge in a paratree, therefore,
is about Jesus Christ. The second Day of Christmas was
two turtle doves. What are the two turtle doves? Those
are the Gospel, the Old and the New Testaments. Three
French hens. Well, that is a very interesting things because
that those birds represent faith, hope, and love. It goes
(05:50):
back to First Corinthians thirteen, fourth day of Christmas. Four
birds calling, Well, what are the four birds calling? They're
the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Fifth Day
of Christmas. Five golden rings. That's the Torah, the five
books of the Old Testament. Six days of Christmas is
my true love gave to me six geese, Elaine, what
(06:12):
could that be? Well, you know, those lyrics can be
translated back to the first story found of the Bible.
Each egg represents a day when the world was created,
the seventh day, of course, when it was hatched, seventh
day of Christmas. My true love gave to me seven
swans a swimming What are those seven swans of swimming? Well,
(06:33):
that's the gifts of the spirit, prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading,
and compassion. Eight maids of milking. There was nothing lower
in England that was than being a milkmaid. And this
is the story of Christ coming not just for the King,
but also for the least of these and the milk
(06:54):
maid in England they were definitely the least of these.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you've been listening to Ace Collins tell the story
of one of the best love Christmas songs of all time.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And by the way, just think about it.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And we take these things for granted, hearing a voice
through a speaker, and what are the.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
First things ever read?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
A passage from the Gospel, and of course a Holy Night,
the first song ever performed. And on Christmas Eve of
all days, when we come back more of the stories
behind the best loved songs of Christmas. Here on our
American Stories. Here are our American Stories. We bring you
inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories
(07:37):
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If you love our stories and America like we do,
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keep the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories
(07:58):
dot com. And we continue here with our American Stories
and our special Christmas edition. Let's pick up where we
last left off with eighth Colin sharing with us the
(08:19):
story of the coded Catholic Christmas Carol, the twelve Days
of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Year's ace.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Nine ladies dancing? What it was?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Nine ladies dancing? Those are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
You know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, gentleness,
and self control. Ten lords of Leaping's pretty easy, you know.
That is the judges in the law. Ten lords. Well,
that's also the ten Commandments. The eleventh day of Christmas
my true Love gave to me eleven pipers piping. Those
(08:52):
are the disciples that took the story out to the world. Well,
you may say there's twelve disciples. Judas did not take
the word out, the eleven decide Bibles took the word out,
and finally the last one is twelve drummers drumming. Well
that you can tell that directly to the Catholic Church
because that's the Apostles creed and so that is the
story behind the Twelve Days of Christmas. And I think
(09:16):
it's one of the most fascinating stories of all because
it was essentially speaking a teacher's aid, and that makes
it very special when you look at history, and one
of the things we've got to recognize here, most of
our great carols and most of our great traditions came
about because of the missionaries, the early missionaries in the
(09:39):
Catholic Church as well. We owe them a tremendous debt
of gratitude for all the different things and elements of
Christmas that they brought to us from the cultures that
they went out and had missionary contact with. Getting back
to one of the little known things, there's so many
great stories about Silent Night. But did you realize this,
the little bitty church in Austria, or that little was
(10:00):
brought to life is Saint Nicholas.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
That to me is just you know.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
And we would not know the story of Silent Knight,
nor would we sing it because it was a one
It was you know, it was put together because the
organ didn't work for one time only somebody had had
to fix the organ. And the guy who came by
to fix the organ said, what did you do for music?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
On Christmas?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Even the priest played him that song, He wrote down
the lyrics, he wrote down the music and took it
everywhere he went in Europe, fixing organs, and within twenty
years it had spread to the United States. And the
priest who was this little priest Joseph Moore and opened
to Austria, had no idea that anybody was singing his
song because he'd even quit singing it. And he went
(10:40):
to Colone, Germany one time and there it was ringing
from this cathedral and he went, how did they find
out about that?
Speaker 4 (10:46):
You know?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And so he died without ever being given credit for
writing the song.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Yeah, but what.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
An impact this little priest who never went into anything
except little churches and all I had on the world
because that is that Jesus loves me. Of all Christmas carols,
you know, everybody knows it. I love to look at
what music has meant to traditions, because I don't think
you could have Christmas without the music.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I've always told people at my house, it wasn't Christmas
until you heard Being Seen White Christmas and Elvis sing
Blue Christmas. You had to have both of those songs
play before it really became Christmas, and the music of
the season was not always that important if you were
not a Catholic. Yes, Glory and Excessive Dais dates back
probably nineteen hundred years. It dates back to at least
(11:37):
one thirty. Part of that song does and songs like Oh,
Come O Come Emmanuel date back to the nine hundreds.
But most of our Christmas music is relatively new, and
it was birthed after the Civil War by something that
happened first in Victorian England and then spread to the
United States, and that was Christmas caroling. And suddenly, with
Christmas caroling, you had the opportunity to write new songs
(12:00):
that people could sing as they went house to house
caroling in the eighteen hundreds and eighteen nineties, and with
the invention of the phonograph record that really took off.
One of the songs, though, that I think is the
is the most interesting of all of the songs that
created tradition like no other, was a song that was
written in Medford, Massachusetts and about eighteen forty and it
(12:23):
was written by a preacher's son for a Thanksgiving gathering
in the community. His father had assigned him the task
of creating a song for the Christmas choir, and he
was sitting at the only piano in Medford, Massachusetts, and
couldn't concentrate because of all the noise outside his door.
(12:43):
He went outside his door and these teenage boys were
attempting to impress teenage girls by having drag races with
a horse drawn sleigh. Okay, I mean that's what it
was on this this was what inspired him. He didn't
go in and write something for Thanksgiving. He wrote an
eighteen forties beach boys song. It's called jingle Bells. If
(13:05):
you listen to it, it is all about guys trying
to impress girls by going fast with their hot rods
of the period.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Well, the people who came and that Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
To hear this song, were so impressed with the children's
choir they begged for them to put it in the
Christmas service as well. So imagine this reverend Christmas service
and in the middle of it, these kids are singing
jingle Bells. Well, the people who visited from Boston and
New York City thought it was a Christmas song, and
they took it back to New York and Boston. Is
(13:40):
a Christmas song in the eighteen sixties. It has spread
all over the United States. Curier knives we're using it
for inspiration. One horse sleigh, the images of snow, the
images of children gathering, the image of writing in these
sleighs all goes back to the greatest Thanksgiving song of
all time, jingle Bells, which is nothing more than a beach,
(14:00):
but it is that song that has projected into our minds.
Hollywood is used at TV, is used at Heaven knows
how many Hallmark movies have used it now as a
part of their important tradition. You can't pick up a
Christmas card without having the inspiration of jingle bells all
over it. And I think that's one of the most
(14:22):
interesting things about American Christmas is that American Christmas was
literally defined by a song about drag racing one horse
sleighs in New England and was meant only for one
Thanksgiving service. It's the greatest Thanksgiving song of all time.
But I mean, you think about it, it is totally
(14:42):
into Oh you hear something else that is funny that
goes with it too, that it ties right into it.
This song, jingle Bell Rock, the first great rock and
roll Christmas song. Jingle Bell Rock is not about dancing.
It's two guys from New England who happened to live
in New Orleans then wrote it about a New England Christmas,
about rocking along as a one horse drawn sleigh and
(15:05):
if you listen to the lyrics, there's nothing about dancing
or anything else. But when Brenda Lee cut it at
twelve years old, Owen Bradley was the producer, and it
became this monster hit. Everybody thought it was a rock
and roll song, and the guys were initially appalled that
people thought it was a dance song until the royalty
checks started coming in and then suddenly, oh yeah, that's fine,
we meant that all along, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
But it was you know that is what you know
jingle Bell Rock was all about.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, you know, it is so funny because seven of
the top ten best selling Christmas songs of all time
were written by Jewish people. White Christmas, Root Off the
Red Nose, Reindeer, A Holly Jolly Christmas, jingle Bell Rock,
but Holly Jolly Christmas, Rudolf and jingle Bell Rock were
(15:50):
all written by Johnny Marks. And so you start and
I ask a friend of mine who was Jewish one time,
I said, you know why there's so many great Christmas
songs written by Jewish people. He said, well, it was
a Jewish guy's birthday.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Of course I found out stories behind all of them,
and that's not the reason. But you know that were
still you know, that's a great line. I mean, that
is just really a good line. I started keeping track
about nine ten years ago of what the number one
song story that people ask about on Christian radio and
(16:26):
on secular radio. I was curious as to how they
lined up. The number one song story on secular radio
that people ask about is a Holy Ninth, which I
found found fascinating. The number one song on Christian radio
that people ask me about is Grandma Got run over
by a raindeer.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Grian Maw got run over by.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Rain there walking home from our house Christmas.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
You can say there's no such thing out sand.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Lads.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
For me and Grandpa, we believe.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
The guy who wrote Grandma got run over by reindeer
had He was a Vanderbilt student and he had a
band and his band Betty, you can't write a song
where somebody dies in the first verse and have.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Anybody listened to it.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
That's so he did, and it became a hit for
several different groups, including Elmo and Patsy probably had the
biggest hit on You know Scott Bell who wrote that song?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
What is?
Speaker 5 (17:28):
What is?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
What did he do with his life? He's an air
traffic controller.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
He had hoof friend on her forehead, ndon criminiting laws
marks on her back.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And you're listening to the infectious storytelling of Ace Collins.
It doesn't get any better, folks, when we come back
more of these great stories of our best loved Christmas
songs here on our American Stories. We believe, and we
(18:08):
continue with our American Stories and our special Christmas Edition,
and we do this each year around the Christmas holiday season,
and we do it because we love it and we
hope you love it. But these stories are stories that
we think need to be heard, and well we have
great people telling them, and you're listening to Ace Collins
(18:28):
tell the stories behind the best loved songs of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Let's pick up when we last left off year's Ace.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know I mentioned earlier that it's not Christmas till
you heard Being in Elvis, maybe Perry Como. But think
about this, Bing Crosby would probably be forgotten today without
all of his Christmas hits. It wouldn't be true of Elvis,
but it would be true of Being. There are other
people who had one hit. Bobby Helms, who was jingle
(18:58):
bell rock we'll listen to every year, who otherwise would
have been lost forever. Dinah Shore charted four hundred and
fifty times, never had a Christmas song, so nobody ever
remembers one of the top charting artists of the nineteen
forties and early fifties because she didn't ever find that
Christmas song. Christmas songs make you immortal. If you're an artist,
(19:20):
you know that is just it's mind boggling. If you
have a Christmas hit, people are going to be listening
to you for the next hundred years. That's a big
part of the fact that your identity is going to
be hooked on to a large jury to a Christmas song.
If you're an artist from the thirties, forties and fifties
and they're still playing your stuff, they're playing your stuff
by a large because it's Christmas. And if you didn't
(19:43):
have that Christmas hit, they wouldn't be playing your stuff.
And so Christmas hits do make you to a certain
degree immortal. You know, you'll come back every late November
and early December, and you'll be a part of Christmas
movies on Hallmark forever because they will play a blurb
of you singing one of those songs. And you know,
(20:06):
it's ironic that Elvis's big hit was Blue Christmas when
his best Christmas song was why can't every Day? But
day will be Like Christmas, which is still played, but
not like Blue Christmas has played and Blue Christmas has
been around for eleven years, but twelve years before Elvis
cut it, and it had gone nowhere and not been
a major hit at all. Did Elvis cut it?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Christmas? Love you.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
So bo? Who does think again?
Speaker 4 (20:44):
You echo shuns over it.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
On a.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Christmas tree.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Oh it would be.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
The family of the man who wrote that song told
me that blue Christmas means green at their house because
of the royalty checks that Helpus generates every every Christmas.
So yeah, you know Irving Berlin's take on white Christmas
when he told when he gave it to Bing Crosby,
Irving Berlin told Bing, I've writ some great songs for
(21:29):
this movie Holiday m but my Christmas song is just
not very good. And he played it for being and said,
oh my gosh, Irving, this is perfect. And berlin'said, are
you sure I don't think it captures the captures what
Christmas is all about? And he said, no, no, don't
change a word. We'll we'll sing it.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
Oh what Chris with every Christmas card?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
You know A great story behind silver Bells that was
in the Bob Hope movie A Lemon Drop Kid. Bob
thought he finally had a hit Christmas song, being had four,
he wanted one too, his best friend all these hits,
and so when he sang.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
It in the movie, he thought, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Gonna go in this fall and cut this song and
release it for Christmas because the movie wasn't coming out
to Christmas anyway, well being heard listen to Bob talking
about the song, went into the studio, cut silver bells,
beat Bob to the marketplace with it, and bing Crosby
had to hit on silver bells and Bob still never
had a Christmas hit, so his best friend beat him again.
(22:55):
Matthis is another one.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I mentioned Como because Como's only listened to because he
all those Christmas specials. And you think about the song
Christmas is amazing because years before Rosa Parks broke the
color barrier on the buses and Jackie Robinson wrote the
color barrier in baseball, Nat King Cole took a Mel
(23:18):
tourmat song and broke the color barrier at Christmas with
the Christmas song jazz Nuts roasting on an open five,
Jack Froz nipping at you know, and you know, and
(23:39):
Mel Tourmet had to fight to take that song he
had written and give it to Nat King Cole because
there were a lot of radio stations across the United
States that wouldn't play music of a black man. And
ultimately speaking, that song was so powerful and that song
touched so many lives that in nineteen forty six it
really became the song that brought a bit of color
(24:01):
to Christmas, and I think that's one of the great stories.
But Christmas songs that last, you know, either have to
have a different point of view, like Mary, did you Know?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Which is?
Speaker 5 (24:12):
You Know?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Mark Lowry's Incredible song? Or Why Christmas? I'll Be Home
for Christmas? Or released during World War two, Have Yourself
a Married Little Christmas by Judy Garland. I'm not sure
they would have been huge hits without the fact of
what those songs meant to a nation divided by a
world war, with so many families separated during from nineteen
(24:35):
forty one to nineteen forty five. And so I think
the timing of when a song is released do you
hear what I hear? Released during the Civil War. It's
timing that has to do, I guess with everything in life,
but it's particularly true at Christmas. If your song comes
at a time when people are insecure and they need
(24:58):
something to latch onto the it's easy to latch onto
a Christmas song like White Christmas or I'll Be Home
for Christmas or have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as
a secular prayer during that holiday season. And I think
you know, I think that is one of those songs
have resonated for so long when you had some really
(25:19):
great Christmas songs that were written during that same time
that right before World War two or right after World
War two that we don't we don't listen to or
sing anymore. Timing is everything when it comes to holidays.
The song stories are really good. I mean, you know,
you think about Gloria in excessus Dais, and that's a
(25:42):
song that goes back to probably one thirty a d
There was a church leader long before we were celebrating
Christmas that instructed all congregations in the Christian Church at
that time that whenever the second chapter of Luke was read,
that the congregation should sing Gloria and Cess of Dales.
And therefore, at least part of that song that we
(26:05):
know as Gloria now existed eighteen hundred ninety years ago.
And if that is the case, and all the different
congregations knew that song, you know, then it had to
have been passed down earlier than that. So it doesn't
take much of a leap of faith to think that
(26:25):
song is probably predates that one thirty edict by you
know anywhere from seventy to eighty years and therefore the
guy who wrote that may have actually known Jesus, and
that makes that song very very powerful.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Indeed, great job as always to Greg Hanglick for putting
this storytelling together and forgetting us and bringing us. Ace Collins,
who is the author of the story Stories behind the
(27:01):
Best Loved Songs of Christmas, And indeed what storytelling we
just heard? The story of the stories behind the best
Loved Songs of Christmas. Our special episodes of our special
storytelling each Christmas season here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show
and today and around the Christmas season, we bring you
special stories about a special time and the stories behind
the stories of our Christmas traditions. And today we're going
to focus on Christmas songs we love to sing and
(00:32):
these are fascinating stories we hope will enrich your holiday celebration.
Ace Collins is the author of stories behind the best
loved songs of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Collins is an ace at song history, and.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
He's here to introduce you to people you've never met,
stories you've never heard, and meanings you'd never have imagined.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hears Ace.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
One of the best Christmas songs is Oh Holy Night.
Try back almost two hundred years to France, when a
local priest asked a parishioner who was the commissioner of
wines to write a poem for the Christmas Eve service.
He was writing in a carriage on the way to Paris.
He wrote the poem was so impressed with it that
he took it to a friend of his who wrote operas,
(01:18):
and he asked him, can you write music to this poem?
The man read the poem said, it's a beautiful poem,
but I think I'm not the right guy to do it.
He said, no, no, you have this handle on music.
I want you to write it. So he put together
some beautiful music to go with it. It was sung
in a little church in France that evening of Christmas
(01:40):
Eve Mass, and people were so impressed. It became a
tradition in that church, and within five years had spread
clear across France, and then it began to spread across England.
Ironically enough, in about eighteen forty the French church threw
it out of services because they deemed it was too
(02:01):
secular think of a Holy Night being secular. But the
whole point was this, the man who had written the
music to go with the lyrics was Jewish, and they
didn't want a Jewish man's music associated with Christmas. Well,
they didn't stop the English from singing it at Christmas time,
and then it came to the United States in the
(02:22):
eighteen fifties, not as a Christmas song, but as a
part of the abolitionist movement. Because in the third verse
there are a number of lines dealing with chain shall
he break, for the slave is our brother in his name,
all Opprussian shall cease. It was after the Civil War
(02:43):
that this song, Oh Holy Night, which is one of
the most beautiful of all carells, began to be a
part of the caroly movement here in the United States
and was brought into churches. It's also a song that
has two other great stories with it. One the Franco
Prussian War. On Christmas Eve, some French guy jumped out
of a fox hole when sang that song. He was
(03:04):
answered by a German who sang Silent Night, and the
two sides got together and had twenty four hours of
celebrations of Christmas. So it early was the song that
brought peace on earth. Let's go ahead. The nineteen oh
six Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man named Fessenden is working on
doing something that everyone thought was impossible. He is going
(03:25):
to create a transmitter that is so strong it will
broadcast the human voice. Now Marconi even said this was impossible.
Edison said it was impossible. Alexander Graham Bell said, you
can't have a transmitter that can do that, you know.
On Christmas Eve nineteen oh six, Fessisenden tried his new
(03:47):
invention out and people who were in telegraph offices and
ships at sea, and newsrooms and weather bureau suddenly heard
his voice reading the second chapter of Luke rather than
dot dot dash dash. Now imagine what you must have
felt like to hear a human voice coming over these
little speakers when you had been told it was impossible.
(04:10):
Then Felsenden picked up a violin and the very first
song ever played on radio was a Holy Ninth. I
get asked about the Twelve Days of Christmas a great deal.
And there's some controversy with this song. There are some
people that believe that the meaning of the Twelve Days
of Christmas was added after the song was written. It
was not written as anything but a kind of a
(04:32):
silly little Christmas song. And I don't know if it
was written as a code song or if it became
a code song, but I can tell you this, the
Catholic Church did use it. I've talked to Catholic historians.
I've talked in both the United States and Great Britain
as a code song when Catholicism was outlawed by the
(04:52):
Church of England, and this song the Twelve Days of
Christmas therefore had religious meanings that were attached.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
To the lyrics.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Once again, were they written as code or did the
Catholic Church seize upon this and find a way to make.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
It a code.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I think it was written as code, but I don't
know that. You know, the argument's going to go back
and forth on that for eternity. None of us will
ever know which is right and which is wrong. But
I can tell you what the code words in this
were and what they meant. A partridge in a partree.
The partridge is the only bird that will lay down
(05:29):
its life for its nest. That partridge in a paratree, therefore,
is about Jesus Christ. The second Day of Christmas was
two turtle doves. What are the two turtle doves? Those
are the Gospel, the Old and the New Testaments. Three
French hens. Well, that is a very interesting things because
that those birds represent faith, hope, and love. It goes
(05:50):
back to First Corinthians thirteen, fourth day of Christmas. Four
birds calling, Well, what are the four birds calling? They're
the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Fifth Day
of Christmas. Five golden rings. That's the Torah, the five
books of the Old Testament. Six days of Christmas is
my true love gave to me six geese, Elaine, what
(06:12):
could that be? Well, you know, those lyrics can be
translated back to the first story found of the Bible.
Each egg represents a day when the world was created,
the seventh day, of course, when it was hatched, seventh
day of Christmas. My true love gave to me seven
swans a swimming What are those seven swans of swimming? Well,
(06:33):
that's the gifts of the spirit, prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading,
and compassion. Eight maids of milking. There was nothing lower
in England that was than being a milkmaid. And this
is the story of Christ coming not just for the King,
but also for the least of these and the milk
(06:54):
maid in England they were definitely the least of these.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you've been listening to Ace Collins tell the story
of one of the best love Christmas songs of all time.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And by the way, just think about it.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And we take these things for granted, hearing a voice
through a speaker, and what are the.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
First things ever read?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
A passage from the Gospel, and of course a Holy Night,
the first song ever performed. And on Christmas Eve of
all days, when we come back more of the stories
behind the best loved songs of Christmas. Here on our
American Stories. Here are our American Stories. We bring you
inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories
(07:37):
from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.
But we can't do it without you. Our stories are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love our stories and America like we do,
please go to our Americanstories dot com and click the
donate button. Give a little, give a lot, help us
keep the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories
(07:58):
dot com. And we continue here with our American Stories
and our special Christmas edition. Let's pick up where we
last left off with eighth Colin sharing with us the
(08:19):
story of the coded Catholic Christmas Carol, the twelve Days
of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Year's ace.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Nine ladies dancing? What it was?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Nine ladies dancing? Those are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
You know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, gentleness,
and self control. Ten lords of Leaping's pretty easy, you know.
That is the judges in the law. Ten lords. Well,
that's also the ten Commandments. The eleventh day of Christmas
my true Love gave to me eleven pipers piping. Those
(08:52):
are the disciples that took the story out to the world. Well,
you may say there's twelve disciples. Judas did not take
the word out, the eleven decide Bibles took the word out,
and finally the last one is twelve drummers drumming. Well
that you can tell that directly to the Catholic Church
because that's the Apostles creed and so that is the
story behind the Twelve Days of Christmas. And I think
(09:16):
it's one of the most fascinating stories of all because
it was essentially speaking a teacher's aid, and that makes
it very special when you look at history, and one
of the things we've got to recognize here, most of
our great carols and most of our great traditions came
about because of the missionaries, the early missionaries in the
(09:39):
Catholic Church as well. We owe them a tremendous debt
of gratitude for all the different things and elements of
Christmas that they brought to us from the cultures that
they went out and had missionary contact with. Getting back
to one of the little known things, there's so many
great stories about Silent Night. But did you realize this,
the little bitty church in Austria, or that little was
(10:00):
brought to life is Saint Nicholas.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
That to me is just you know.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
And we would not know the story of Silent Knight,
nor would we sing it because it was a one
It was you know, it was put together because the
organ didn't work for one time only somebody had had
to fix the organ. And the guy who came by
to fix the organ said, what did you do for music?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
On Christmas?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Even the priest played him that song, He wrote down
the lyrics, he wrote down the music and took it
everywhere he went in Europe, fixing organs, and within twenty
years it had spread to the United States. And the
priest who was this little priest Joseph Moore and opened
to Austria, had no idea that anybody was singing his
song because he'd even quit singing it. And he went
(10:40):
to Colone, Germany one time and there it was ringing
from this cathedral and he went, how did they find
out about that?
Speaker 4 (10:46):
You know?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And so he died without ever being given credit for
writing the song.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Yeah, but what.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
An impact this little priest who never went into anything
except little churches and all I had on the world
because that is that Jesus loves me. Of all Christmas carols,
you know, everybody knows it. I love to look at
what music has meant to traditions, because I don't think
you could have Christmas without the music.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I've always told people at my house, it wasn't Christmas
until you heard Being Seen White Christmas and Elvis sing
Blue Christmas. You had to have both of those songs
play before it really became Christmas, and the music of
the season was not always that important if you were
not a Catholic. Yes, Glory and Excessive Dais dates back
probably nineteen hundred years. It dates back to at least
(11:37):
one thirty. Part of that song does and songs like Oh,
Come O Come Emmanuel date back to the nine hundreds.
But most of our Christmas music is relatively new, and
it was birthed after the Civil War by something that
happened first in Victorian England and then spread to the
United States, and that was Christmas caroling. And suddenly, with
Christmas caroling, you had the opportunity to write new songs
(12:00):
that people could sing as they went house to house
caroling in the eighteen hundreds and eighteen nineties, and with
the invention of the phonograph record that really took off.
One of the songs, though, that I think is the
is the most interesting of all of the songs that
created tradition like no other, was a song that was
written in Medford, Massachusetts and about eighteen forty and it
(12:23):
was written by a preacher's son for a Thanksgiving gathering
in the community. His father had assigned him the task
of creating a song for the Christmas choir, and he
was sitting at the only piano in Medford, Massachusetts, and
couldn't concentrate because of all the noise outside his door.
(12:43):
He went outside his door and these teenage boys were
attempting to impress teenage girls by having drag races with
a horse drawn sleigh. Okay, I mean that's what it
was on this this was what inspired him. He didn't
go in and write something for Thanksgiving. He wrote an
eighteen forties beach boys song. It's called jingle Bells. If
(13:05):
you listen to it, it is all about guys trying
to impress girls by going fast with their hot rods
of the period.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Well, the people who came and that Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
To hear this song, were so impressed with the children's
choir they begged for them to put it in the
Christmas service as well. So imagine this reverend Christmas service
and in the middle of it, these kids are singing
jingle Bells. Well, the people who visited from Boston and
New York City thought it was a Christmas song, and
they took it back to New York and Boston. Is
(13:40):
a Christmas song in the eighteen sixties. It has spread
all over the United States. Curier knives we're using it
for inspiration. One horse sleigh, the images of snow, the
images of children gathering, the image of writing in these
sleighs all goes back to the greatest Thanksgiving song of
all time, jingle Bells, which is nothing more than a beach,
(14:00):
but it is that song that has projected into our minds.
Hollywood is used at TV, is used at Heaven knows
how many Hallmark movies have used it now as a
part of their important tradition. You can't pick up a
Christmas card without having the inspiration of jingle bells all
over it. And I think that's one of the most
(14:22):
interesting things about American Christmas is that American Christmas was
literally defined by a song about drag racing one horse
sleighs in New England and was meant only for one
Thanksgiving service. It's the greatest Thanksgiving song of all time.
But I mean, you think about it, it is totally
(14:42):
into Oh you hear something else that is funny that
goes with it too, that it ties right into it.
This song, jingle Bell Rock, the first great rock and
roll Christmas song. Jingle Bell Rock is not about dancing.
It's two guys from New England who happened to live
in New Orleans then wrote it about a New England Christmas,
about rocking along as a one horse drawn sleigh and
(15:05):
if you listen to the lyrics, there's nothing about dancing
or anything else. But when Brenda Lee cut it at
twelve years old, Owen Bradley was the producer, and it
became this monster hit. Everybody thought it was a rock
and roll song, and the guys were initially appalled that
people thought it was a dance song until the royalty
checks started coming in and then suddenly, oh yeah, that's fine,
we meant that all along, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
But it was you know that is what you know
jingle Bell Rock was all about.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, you know, it is so funny because seven of
the top ten best selling Christmas songs of all time
were written by Jewish people. White Christmas, Root Off the
Red Nose, Reindeer, A Holly Jolly Christmas, jingle Bell Rock,
but Holly Jolly Christmas, Rudolf and jingle Bell Rock were
(15:50):
all written by Johnny Marks. And so you start and
I ask a friend of mine who was Jewish one time,
I said, you know why there's so many great Christmas
songs written by Jewish people. He said, well, it was
a Jewish guy's birthday.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Of course I found out stories behind all of them,
and that's not the reason. But you know that were
still you know, that's a great line. I mean, that
is just really a good line. I started keeping track
about nine ten years ago of what the number one
song story that people ask about on Christian radio and
(16:26):
on secular radio. I was curious as to how they
lined up. The number one song story on secular radio
that people ask about is a Holy Ninth, which I
found found fascinating. The number one song on Christian radio
that people ask me about is Grandma Got run over
by a raindeer.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Grian Maw got run over by.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Rain there walking home from our house Christmas.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
You can say there's no such thing out sand.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Lads.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
For me and Grandpa, we believe.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
The guy who wrote Grandma got run over by reindeer
had He was a Vanderbilt student and he had a
band and his band Betty, you can't write a song
where somebody dies in the first verse and have.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Anybody listened to it.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
That's so he did, and it became a hit for
several different groups, including Elmo and Patsy probably had the
biggest hit on You know Scott Bell who wrote that song?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
What is?
Speaker 5 (17:28):
What is?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
What did he do with his life? He's an air
traffic controller.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
He had hoof friend on her forehead, ndon criminiting laws
marks on her back.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And you're listening to the infectious storytelling of Ace Collins.
It doesn't get any better, folks, when we come back
more of these great stories of our best loved Christmas
songs here on our American Stories. We believe, and we
(18:08):
continue with our American Stories and our special Christmas Edition,
and we do this each year around the Christmas holiday season,
and we do it because we love it and we
hope you love it. But these stories are stories that
we think need to be heard, and well we have
great people telling them, and you're listening to Ace Collins
(18:28):
tell the stories behind the best loved songs of Christmas.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Let's pick up when we last left off year's Ace.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know I mentioned earlier that it's not Christmas till
you heard Being in Elvis, maybe Perry Como. But think
about this, Bing Crosby would probably be forgotten today without
all of his Christmas hits. It wouldn't be true of Elvis,
but it would be true of Being. There are other
people who had one hit. Bobby Helms, who was jingle
(18:58):
bell rock we'll listen to every year, who otherwise would
have been lost forever. Dinah Shore charted four hundred and
fifty times, never had a Christmas song, so nobody ever
remembers one of the top charting artists of the nineteen
forties and early fifties because she didn't ever find that
Christmas song. Christmas songs make you immortal. If you're an artist,
(19:20):
you know that is just it's mind boggling. If you
have a Christmas hit, people are going to be listening
to you for the next hundred years. That's a big
part of the fact that your identity is going to
be hooked on to a large jury to a Christmas song.
If you're an artist from the thirties, forties and fifties
and they're still playing your stuff, they're playing your stuff
by a large because it's Christmas. And if you didn't
(19:43):
have that Christmas hit, they wouldn't be playing your stuff.
And so Christmas hits do make you to a certain
degree immortal. You know, you'll come back every late November
and early December, and you'll be a part of Christmas
movies on Hallmark forever because they will play a blurb
of you singing one of those songs. And you know,
(20:06):
it's ironic that Elvis's big hit was Blue Christmas when
his best Christmas song was why can't every Day? But
day will be Like Christmas, which is still played, but
not like Blue Christmas has played and Blue Christmas has
been around for eleven years, but twelve years before Elvis
cut it, and it had gone nowhere and not been
a major hit at all. Did Elvis cut it?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Christmas? Love you.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
So bo? Who does think again?
Speaker 4 (20:44):
You echo shuns over it.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
On a.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Christmas tree.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Oh it would be.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
The family of the man who wrote that song told
me that blue Christmas means green at their house because
of the royalty checks that Helpus generates every every Christmas.
So yeah, you know Irving Berlin's take on white Christmas
when he told when he gave it to Bing Crosby,
Irving Berlin told Bing, I've writ some great songs for
(21:29):
this movie Holiday m but my Christmas song is just
not very good. And he played it for being and said,
oh my gosh, Irving, this is perfect. And berlin'said, are
you sure I don't think it captures the captures what
Christmas is all about? And he said, no, no, don't
change a word. We'll we'll sing it.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
Oh what Chris with every Christmas card?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
You know A great story behind silver Bells that was
in the Bob Hope movie A Lemon Drop Kid. Bob
thought he finally had a hit Christmas song, being had four,
he wanted one too, his best friend all these hits,
and so when he sang.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
It in the movie, he thought, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Gonna go in this fall and cut this song and
release it for Christmas because the movie wasn't coming out
to Christmas anyway, well being heard listen to Bob talking
about the song, went into the studio, cut silver bells,
beat Bob to the marketplace with it, and bing Crosby
had to hit on silver bells and Bob still never
had a Christmas hit, so his best friend beat him again.
(22:55):
Matthis is another one.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I mentioned Como because Como's only listened to because he
all those Christmas specials. And you think about the song
Christmas is amazing because years before Rosa Parks broke the
color barrier on the buses and Jackie Robinson wrote the
color barrier in baseball, Nat King Cole took a Mel
(23:18):
tourmat song and broke the color barrier at Christmas with
the Christmas song jazz Nuts roasting on an open five,
Jack Froz nipping at you know, and you know, and
(23:39):
Mel Tourmet had to fight to take that song he
had written and give it to Nat King Cole because
there were a lot of radio stations across the United
States that wouldn't play music of a black man. And
ultimately speaking, that song was so powerful and that song
touched so many lives that in nineteen forty six it
really became the song that brought a bit of color
(24:01):
to Christmas, and I think that's one of the great stories.
But Christmas songs that last, you know, either have to
have a different point of view, like Mary, did you Know?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Which is?
Speaker 5 (24:12):
You Know?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Mark Lowry's Incredible song? Or Why Christmas? I'll Be Home
for Christmas? Or released during World War two, Have Yourself
a Married Little Christmas by Judy Garland. I'm not sure
they would have been huge hits without the fact of
what those songs meant to a nation divided by a
world war, with so many families separated during from nineteen
(24:35):
forty one to nineteen forty five. And so I think
the timing of when a song is released do you
hear what I hear? Released during the Civil War. It's
timing that has to do, I guess with everything in life,
but it's particularly true at Christmas. If your song comes
at a time when people are insecure and they need
(24:58):
something to latch onto the it's easy to latch onto
a Christmas song like White Christmas or I'll Be Home
for Christmas or have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as
a secular prayer during that holiday season. And I think
you know, I think that is one of those songs
have resonated for so long when you had some really
(25:19):
great Christmas songs that were written during that same time
that right before World War two or right after World
War two that we don't we don't listen to or
sing anymore. Timing is everything when it comes to holidays.
The song stories are really good. I mean, you know,
you think about Gloria in excessus Dais, and that's a
(25:42):
song that goes back to probably one thirty a d
There was a church leader long before we were celebrating
Christmas that instructed all congregations in the Christian Church at
that time that whenever the second chapter of Luke was read,
that the congregation should sing Gloria and Cess of Dales.
And therefore, at least part of that song that we
(26:05):
know as Gloria now existed eighteen hundred ninety years ago.
And if that is the case, and all the different
congregations knew that song, you know, then it had to
have been passed down earlier than that. So it doesn't
take much of a leap of faith to think that
(26:25):
song is probably predates that one thirty edict by you
know anywhere from seventy to eighty years and therefore the
guy who wrote that may have actually known Jesus, and
that makes that song very very powerful.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Indeed, great job as always to Greg Hanglick for putting
this storytelling together and forgetting us and bringing us. Ace Collins,
who is the author of the story Stories behind the
(27:01):
Best Loved Songs of Christmas, And indeed what storytelling we
just heard? The story of the stories behind the best
Loved Songs of Christmas. Our special episodes of our special
storytelling each Christmas season here on our American Stories
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