Christmas Carols, Part II: Twas Night Before Christmas (A Visit From St. Nicholas), by Clement C. Moore

Though certainly not a carol in the traditional sense, Clement C. Moore’s wonderful Twas Night Before Christmas (originally entitled A Visit From St. Nicholas) has often been set to music.  There are several delightful musical renditions of the poem, and perhaps our favorite here at the Jade Sphinx is that of Christmas Cowboy Deluxe, Gene Autry (1907-1998), recorded with Rosemary Clooney (1928-2002).  If you don’t believe us – listen and see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TaQPg10OmA.

(Before moving on to Mr. Moore and Mr. Claus, a quick word on Gene Autry.  The very best Christmas present one could get is the classic cowboy’s Christmas album.  Autry introduced Frosty the Snowman, as well as Here Comes Santa Claus and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and his recordings of these numbers are definitive.  In addition, the other songs on the album – including Santa, Santa, Santa and the lovely and evocative Merry Christmas Waltz – are seldom-heard gems, and they have become a tradition in our household.  They should become a tradition in yours, as well.)

Clement Moore (1779-1863) lived with his beloved wife, Elizabeth, and their nine children in a large, comfortable Georgian manor house in what is now the Chelsea section of New York.  The estate, called Chelsea, rested on 96 acres of farmland, which hopefully illustrates that, if nothing else, Manhattan is constantly changing.

Early one Christmas Eve, in his carriage en route to Washington Market to buy a holiday turkey, he began composing a Christmas poem for his six-year-old daughter, Charity.  Back home in his study, he consulted Henry Irving’s History, and finished the poem in three hours.  That night, at supper, he read it aloud to his family – it was the first time Twas Night Before Christmas was heard by an audience.  It was an instant hit.  Charity brought it to her Sunday School class, and then friends had the poem published in the Troy, New York Sentinel the following Christmas in 1823.  Moore, a scholar and serious educator, was initially reluctant to admit authorship.

It was more than 40 years later that the political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) created the modern Santa Claus when illustrating a republication of Moore’s poem.  As cartoonist for the influential illustrated Harper’s Weekly, for each Christmas issue he drew a Santa, which he claimed was a welcome relief from his usual round of political cartooning.  One wonders how he would feel now.

One of the many interesting things in Santa’s evolution is that Moore originally conceived of Santa as elf-sized.  This somehow got lost in the details, as Nast’s Santa was republished everywhere: calendars, cards, posters and wrapping paper.  Between Moore and Nast, the modern Santa Claus was born.

Here’s the original poem:

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the housetop the coursers they flew

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

Bing Crosby

Any list of the most important 20^th Century artists would have to include Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (1903 – 1977) – and he would quite possibly be at the top of it.  Nor do I simply mean a list of great or influential recording artists, despite the fact that Crosby currently has over half a billion records in circulation.  No, it is because Crosby’s voice and demeanor helped define the American consciousness and identity; he personified an idealized American Everyman.  And when seriously assessing the importance of the Great American Songbook, it is impossible to overlook his Olympian presence.

In this post-rock age, Crosby is the ultimate forgotten man.  This is all the more incredible considering that he is the direct inspiration for artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.  He is the popular singer with the most Academy Award wins and nominations (in fact, he is one of only four actors ever nominated twice for playing the same character).  Between 1927 and 1962 he scored 369 charted records under his own name -- yes, 369 charted records.  That record has never been beaten; indeed, no one has come close.  Even the most diverse musical performers are shy by more than 100:  Paul Whiteman (220), Frank Sinatra (209), Elvis Presley (149), Glen Miller (129), Nat “King” Cole (118), Louis Armstrong (85) and the Beatles (68).  In fact, Bing continued to have an average of 16 charted singles per year through 1950, peaking in 1939 with 27 (beaten by the Beatles in 1964, with 30), and never falling below double-digits until 1951, when he placed nine singles in the top 25. 

Crosby also perfected the template by which recording artists built larger and more multi-faceted careers.  It was Bing who first conquered recordings, then radio or television and then Hollywood.  This was the model followed by Sinatra in the 1940s, Presley in the 1950s and Barbra Streisand in the 1960s.  Though each of them was successful in these endeavors, no recording artist has matched Crosby’s long-term success and influence as an all-media star.

For those of us who are interested in statistics, Bing was:

• The first full-time vocalist ever signed to an orchestra
• The man with the most popular recording ever, White Christmas, the only single to make American pop charts 20 times
• The man who scored the most number one hits ever, 38, compared with 24 by the Beatles and 18 by Elvis Presley
• The only pre-1980 film star to rank as the number one box-office attraction five times (1944-48), and between 1934 and 1954 he scored in the Top Ten 15 times
• He was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor three times and won for Going My Way
• He financed and popularized the development of tape, revolutionizing the recording industry

But, finally, what does all of this mean?  Is popular success the definition of an artist?  Do record sales translate into aesthetic achievement?  Obviously not, for if that were the case then, good Lord, we would degrade the label artist by using it on the largely talent-free figures that swamp the post-rock scene.  (It is significant that the greatest talents of popular American musicians clustered in a period when music was written by and for adults, and not undulating children and adults unwilling to challenge themselves with melody, lyric, sentiment and sophistication.)

Bing was a great artist for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost, he had one of the most pitch-perfect voices during the golden era of the Great American Songbook.  More importantly, he was a terrific jazz singer, particularly in his 1930s recordings.  He was perhaps at his best in duos, and his duets with Connie Boswell, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire and Rosemary Clooney have a collaborative quality that these artists were never able to achieve with another partner. 

Bing was also the first artist to really make use of one of the most revolutionary musical tools – the microphone.   Bing knew that the microphone was a passport to intimacy, and he was perhaps the first great American popular singer who sang to his audience, rather than at them. 

Like most great artists, he was able to achieve a corpus of work that is both timeless and reflective of the time in which it was created.  Many Bing aficionados, like myself, prefer the Jazz era Crosby of the 1930s, while others find greatest satisfaction with the American troubadour Bing of the 1940s and 50s.  Bing managed to change with the times (until the advent of rock), finding the mode of delivery most resonant to people of three decades, and then defining it. 

As a screen actor, Bing had few peers.  His film work in pictures as diverse as Country Girl (1954), where he plays an alcoholic actor, and as a journalist in Little Boy Lost (1953) is remarkably adept.  His career as a musical comedy star is of a very high order, and is on view in films as different as Holiday Inn (1942), High Society (1956) and Anything Goes (1936).  He was also a gifted comedian; indeed, the most fascinating thing about the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope (1903-2003) dynamic in a series of seven Road pictures, is that they are cinema’s only evenly-matched duo.  Most comedy teams pair ‘funnyman’ and ‘straight man,’ but Hope and Crosby were never separated by this dynamic, as each were farceurs in their own way.  Thus, movie magic is made.

Crosby is the subject of an excellent biography by Gary Giddins, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams-the Early Years, 1903-1940, published in 2001.  It is the first volume of a two-volume life, and is highly recommended to serious students of jazz, American music and the history of pop culture.

In the final analysis, we must rate Crosby as the consummate popular artist of the 20^th Century.  I believe his remarkable oeuvre lays in wait for future generations to rediscover, and when it comes, the Bing Crosby renaissance will be a formidable one.  One can only hope.

Tomorrow – Fred Astaire!