Fwd: Jewish songwriters and Xmas

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

(re-sent since some didn't get. Forwarded to me by a friend; may be of 
interest.)

The Philadelphia Daily News
December 24, 2001

Santa Bubbe
How Jewish songwriters made Christmas (songs) bright
By Jonathan Takiff

ADAM SANDLER became a great booster for the Jewish entertainment industry a 
few years back, when he came up with the "Hanukkah Song," bragging out loud 
about which celebrities were "of the faith," from Michael Douglas to 
half-Jewish Winona Ryder. Since then, a number of stars have found the 
courage to come out of the closet - on TV shows like "Friends," "Seinfeld" 
and even "South Park."

But probably because he didn't want to baffle and confuse the world, Sandler 
didn't brag about one of show business' strangest  phenomena. Namely, that 
Jews write the best Christmas songs. We're talking about the holiday songs 
that have been around for decades, that everybody knows and still sings, 
year in, year out - even mishpokhe like Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond.

You know "White Christmas," the classic of all holiday refrains and maybe 
the biggest-selling song of all time? Irving Berlin, a  Russian immigrant 
Jew, wrote that one.

How 'bout "The Christmas Song" (aka "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire")? A 
young mensch named Mel Torme put that poem to song one sunny day in 
California. The royalties kept him in lox and bagels for the rest of his 
life.

Even the legend of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," the Santa-saving hero 
of TV shows, children's books and more than 300 recordings, owes his calling 
to a Jewish guy, novelty songwriter Johnny Marks.

'Tis the season.

It's not like Jews (and yours truly is one of 'em) care all that much about 
Jesus - even though he was one of us. The rarely spoken truth about 
Jewish-scribed Christmas songs is that they never ever mention Jesus. And of 
the major league smashes we've mentioned so far, only Torme's classic even 
mentions the Big Guy (in the oft-dropped closing benediction "and God send 
you a happy New Year").

What made these songs universally acceptable is that they focus not on
religion but on the warm and fuzzy sentimentality of the season. Like the 
postcard imagery of falling snow and roaring fires - on Hebrew brethren 
Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne's cuddle-up cutey, "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let 
It Snow." Or the joy of being together, sharing love and kindness - as on 
Jerry Herman's "We Need a Little Christmas" and Al Stillman's "(There's No 
Place Like) Home for the Holidays."

Also clearly thinking season rather than sanctity was Frank Loesser when he 
wrote "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" It's a perfect piece of songcraft 
that still pops up on many a new holiday-themed album.

In essence, these Jewish composers have delivered musical motifs that are 
applicable and inclusive whether you're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Quaker or 
Baha'i. And they are true "standards" in the sense that "any kind of singer 
can handle them," notes Vince Gill, who happily sheds his "country" brand 
identification when he tries them on.

Schlocky, but nice Irving Berlin himself was the ultimate in split 
personality and ecumenical embrace. In his daughter Mary Ellin Barrett's 
book, "Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir," she recalls that her father was 
not religious, but "ethically and culturally he was Jewish."

"Most of his closest friends and associates in show business were Jewish, 
and there is lots of Jewish influence in his music. His father was a cantor, 
and he absorbed Jewish music in his younger years."

Ah, but after his first wife died on their honeymoon, and he married for a 
second time, it was to an upper-crust Irish Catholic liberal named Ellin, 
and they raised daughter Mary Ellin and her sister with both Jewish and 
Christian traditions.

    From the beginning of Berlin's songwriting career, cranking out snappy 
ditties for the vaudeville stage, he was working in all sorts of idioms, 
from "My Yiddisha Nightingale" to "Latins Know How," "When You Kiss an 
Italian Girl" and even "Oh, How That German Could Love."

Nothing could top his "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade" - ironically, 
the most popular American songs about the two most important Christian 
holidays.

In "Operation Shylock," author Philip Roth (Jewish) gently took Berlin to 
task over these unlikely accomplishments: "God gave Moses the Ten
Commandments and He gave to Irving Berlin 'Easter Parade' and 'White
Christmas,' the two holidays that celebrate the divinity of Christ - the 
divinity that's at the very heart of the Jewish rejection of Christianity - 
and what does Irving Berlin do? He de-Christs them both. Easter he turns 
into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow. He turns their 
religion into schlock. But nicely! So nicely the goyim don't even know what 
hit them."

Berlin's Yule ties OK, so maybe Roth is being a little harsh. Berlin 
biographer Lawrence Bergreen says that the composer's wishing out loud for 
Christmases "just like the ones we used to know" was grounded in reality.

"He had nostalgic memories of childhood Christmases on the Lower East Side, 
and especially of the Christmas tree belonging to his neighbors, the 
O'Haras," Bergreen says.

There's another reason Irving got all weepy around this holiday. In 1928, 
his son Irving Jr. died on Christmas Day, just three weeks after he was 
born. Forever after that, Christmas Day in the Berlin household included a 
visit to their son's grave.

Let us also not forget that this song was written in wartime and first
performed in public by Bing Crosby on Christmas Day 1941, just 18 days after 
Pearl Harbor.

While featured in the film "Holiday Inn" (later remade as "White
Christmas"), it was Armed Forces Radio that made the song a big hit with 
U.S. troops abroad, expressing their longings for home and hearth. Berlin 
called his composition "a peace song in wartime," and 60 years later, it's 
still working the same charms.

By contrast, the back story for "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" marks it as 
a pure piece of secularized marketing hokum.

As retold in Dave Marsh and Steve Propes' tome "Merry Christmas, Baby -
Holiday Music From Bing to Sting," the "legend" of the heroic reindeer with 
the lightbulb-bright nose was dreamed up as a poem by advertising copy 
writer Robert Mays to be handed out to holiday shoppers at Montgomery Ward 
stores. When the retailer finally gave up on the promotion, Mays regained 
ownership and handed it over to his brother-in-law Johnny Marks, who came up 
with the jingle-like tune.

This secular celebration would rack up 90 million sales on more than 300 
different recordings (starting with cowboy Gene Autry's mega-hit and 
including notable spinoffs like Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run.")

It also sparked a lifelong career for Marks. He became a holiday
music-making machine, also scoring hits with "Rockin' Around the Christmas 
Tree" (a biggie for Brenda Lee) and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (done up by 
Burl Ives.)

Songs that sleigh

Maybe because they don't feel any sanctimonious spiritual constraints,
Jewish songwriters have long felt free to take liberties with the holidays. 
In so doing, they kick-started the now-rampant trend to refashion Christmas 
cheer in all sorts of musical garb.

Jewess Joan Javits had a hand in the bluesy seduction of the man with the 
beard, "Santa Baby," as done up by those temptresses Eartha Kitt and 
Madonna.

Social satirist Stan Freberg mocked Berlin's classic and the
commercialization of the season with the brilliant "Green Christmas" (green 
as in money) and "Christmas Dragnet," a spoof of Jack Webb's TV detective 
show (and the holiday) that goes a-hunting Santa for the crime of breaking 
and entering.

Harry Shearer's Christian alter-ego Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap takes credit 
for the heavy-metal nonsense "Christmas With the Devil."

Songwriter Albert Hague (best known as the music teacher in "Fame")
Seussified the season with "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch."

And New Yorkers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller gave Elvis Presley reason to 
wiggle and rock on his classic "Christmas Album" with "Santa Claus Is Back 
In Town." Music critic Charles Perry said that "placing this song on an 
album of Christmas standards was like finding a hamburger in a medicine 
cabinet."

Ah, but all-inclusive assimilation music isn't all that Jews have
contributed to the holiday festivities. In fact, the second-most popular 
traditional Christmas carol (after "Silent Night") owes its existence to a 
Jew.

Paris-based composer Adolphe Adam wrote the melody for "O Holy Night." While 
his lyrical collaborator was not also of the faith, Placide Cappeau did 
repudiate Christianity and embrace free thought late in life. It's been 
suggested that these incongruities explain why "O Holy Night" temporarily 
fell out of favor in churches in some regions in the late 19th and early 
20th centuries.

But you can't keep a good tune down for long, eh, Irving? I just wish you'd 
also dreamed up a Hanukkah song that makes the whole world sing.












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