‘Pretty Lights On The Tree . . .’

 by whiteray

I’m not much of a Christmas person. Oh, I loved the season and all the hoo-hah that went along with it when I was a kid. And when my college girlfriend and I married forty-some years ago, we did a tree and some decorations every year, but after that pairing ended and I lived alone for fifteen years, the desire to set up the mini-tree my folks gave me and hang my decorations in my various apartments went away.

It never came back, even as the Texas Gal and I merged our lives after meeting in early 2000. She decorated her apartment during her first December in the Twin Cities (six months before I moved in), but she’s told me since that was mostly for me. We decorated some during our first December in St. Cloud in 2002, but since then, whatever decorations we have – and there are a couple of boxes in the garage – are ignored. 

We’re the same about Christmas music. We used to have three or four CDs of seasonal music – both traditional and modern – but those left during one of our periodic winnowing of the shelves. We wince at Thanksgiving when the main oldies radio station in the Twin Cities kicks in its tradition of playing nothing but Christmas music through the end of the year. I still have my Dad’s LPs of Christmas music he bought at the tire stores during the 1960s, but I never play them. 

In fact, there are only two Christmas records I like. The first came out in 1971: “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” credited to John & Yoko and The Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir. I’ve learned over the years that the melody of the verses is basically pulled from the old folk song “Stewball,” the tale of a racehorse, and I’ve also learned that the structure of the chorus (“War is over if you want it . . .”) is taken pretty much in whole from Johnny Ace’s 1955 record “Pledging My Love.” 

The song was released as a single on Apple but did not chart. I don’t care. I love “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”

My other Christmas song came out years before I was interested in pop music and came to me through annual television performances: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home” by Darlene Love. 

Love originally recorded the song for the 1963 holiday compilation album A Christmas Gift To You From Phil Spector, an album studded with performances by artists who’d recorded for his Philles label, all backed with what came to know as the Wall of Sound, accompaniments that regularly turned pop songs into what Spector called “little symphonies for kids” and did the same for Christmas songs on the 1963 album. 

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” was released as a single on Philles in 1963 but did not chart. It became famed beyond the Spector album, however, when television host David Letterman annually invited Love to perform the song live for his last shows before Christmas from 1986 through 2014. Since then, she’s performed the song annually on ABC’s The View, usually as a duet. 

Although the single from 1963 is fine, there’s something thrilling about Love’s performances on Letterman’s shows through the years, especially her final performance for Letterman from 2014. 

(Before we get there, let me just say that that no matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you can do so with those you love in a place you call home.) 

Now listen to Darlene Love in 2014: