It’s the day before Christmas, and all though my house, there’s no sign of Christmas, but I’ve no right to grouse…
…because it’s my choice to be solitary and miserable this season. Two days ago my adult heir gratuitously sent me a hate bomb that was the most hurtful communication I have ever received from anyone. Given that this individual lives rent free in an apartment in my house and is over 30, I expected just a teeny-weeny bit of, if not gratitude, respect. Uh, no. This was only the latest joy-extracting event this holiday season: I also just wounded my leg (the same one that put me in the hospital in July and hasn’t healed completely yet), I was fired from my oldest ethics gig (as with the unexpected attack from downstairs, the reason is obscure) and the number of administrative Swords of Damocles hanging over my head since Grace died last year have increased rather than diminished, as was my grand plan for 2025. So I’m taking pleasure in other people’s Christmas, including yours. So you better have a great one. Tonight I expect to be playing bridge with three ghosts.
Or heading to the bridge, like George Bailey.
Below is an updated and rewritten version of my earlier post about my favorite modern Christmas song, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” When I still had a professional theater company to oversee, I wrote and directed a musical revue called “An American Century Christmas.” It was staged like one of those old-fashioned TV Christmas specials, with the set decorated like a Christmas living room, and celebrity guests arriving with gifts.
I stuffed everything I loved about the seasonal entertainment into the thing: the scene in “The Homecoming” when John-Boy gets his tablets from his father; the scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” when George gets emotional realizing that he’s in love with Mary while talking to Sam (Hee-haw!) Wainwright on the telephone; Danny and Bing standing in for the Haines Sisters and singing “Sisters:” a reading of “The Littlest Angel;” the Peanuts kids and Snoopy decorating Charlie Brown’s sickly tree. I don’t think anyone liked that show as much as I did, but so what. It made me happy. Even remembering it now makes me happy.
The first act finale was a rousing rendition of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” The song means a lot to me, and I’ll be blasting the original version tonight.
***
Bing Crosby memorably introduced this last of the popular Christmas songs to have a religious theme to most Americans in 1963, on a live broadcast of “The Hollywood Palace.” Like “Silent Night,” the circumstances of its creation is relevant to the song.
“Do You Hear What I Hear?” was written in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The authors were a married songwriting team that wondered at the time if it would be the last thing they ever composed.
Noel Regney, who wrote the lyrics, was born in France and had studied music at the Strasbourg Conservatory and at the Conservatoire National de Paris. “Noel” has to be the best name for a Christmas song creator ever. When France was overwhelmed by Hitler’s troops in 1940, he was conscripted into the German army. As a Nazi soldier, Noel secretly joined the French underground and served as a spy, passing information along to the resistance. Once he led German soldiers into a trap where they were massacred by French fighters who cut them down in a crossfire. He was shot too, but survived.
After that traumatic encounter, Regney deserted and worked with the French underground until the end of the war. Irving Berlin can’t match that backstory.
In 1952, Noel Regney moved to Manhattan and began composing music for many early TV shows as well as commercial jingles. He also translated the 1963 hit “Dominique,” performed by the “The Singing Nun,” into English.
Regney married Gloria Shayne, who was a pianist and composer herself. She also authored some popular songs recorded by well-known singers in the Sixties, including James Darren’s “Goodbye Cruel World (I’m off to join the circus),” “The Men in My Little Girl’s Life,” a hit for Mike Douglas, and “Almost There,” one of Andy Williams’ best-selling recordings. He sang it in his one movie, a romantic comedy in which he was teamed with Robert Goulet. (Do not watch it.)
When Noel and Gloria collaborated, she wrote the lyrics and Noel wrote the melody. “Do You Hear What I Hear?” was the lone exception. (Quite a few distinguished song composers have dabbled in lyric writing. “The Sound of Music” is regarded by some as a holiday movie: the songs written for the film adaptation have music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers, as Oscar Hammerstein was deceased. He was missed…)
In October of 1962, as the stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States had the world fearing a nuclear war that would destroy civilization, a record producer asked Noel to write a holiday song. The wounded war veteran wrote an urgent prayer for peace, and asked Gloria to write the music to accompany his words.
Later describing the process involved in writing the song together, Gloria told an interviewer that when they tried to sing their new creation she and Noel broke down weeping.
There have been over close to 200 versions of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and more covers are recorded every year. Noel Regney’s personal favorite was a recording by, speak of the Devil, Robert Goulet, who shouted out the line, “Pray for peace, people, everywhere.” But, as usual, it was Bing Crosby’s version that became the standard, selling over a million copies. I’m a lifetime Crosby fan and this is my my favorite recording by Bing. Yes, even more than “White Christmas.”
The first recording of the song was in October of 1962 by the Harry Simeone Chorale, of “Little Drummer Boy” infamy. It was a hit, in part because everyone was grateful to be alive that Christmas, and praying for peace seemed like a good idea. Bing Crosby’s version didn’t come out until a year later, but American were in an even more somber mood that Christmas, since President Kennedy had been killed on November 23.
My family had watched “The Hollywood Palace” and the televised premiere of the song the weekend before Christmas, and my always observant parents saw how it affected me. They bought a 45rpm recording of it—Christmas fell on a Wednesday in 1963— and my sister and I were awakened on Christmas morning by Bing’s rich baritone singing “Said the night wind to the little lamb…”
We played that record all day.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Ethics Alarms 
In the darkness there is always light.
The light that comes from within
The light that comes from without
Look to the light!
Light will overcome your oppressors.
Light will vanguish your persecutors
Light will defeat your enemies
Look to the light!
In this season there is always LIGHT
The LIGHT that comes from above
The LIGHT that illuminates below
Look to the LIGHT!
Merry and Serene Christmas greatings
Look to the LIGHT
Merry Christmas, Jack, and to all the Ethics Alarmists everywhere: to all a good night!
jvb
Ethics Alarmists, indeed, John. Great one! There are times I feel as if we’re just shouting, “Get off my lawn!”
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, Jack. The older I get, the more I find that to be true for me. The path behind me gets longer and longer and appears increasingly pock-marked with hardship and tragedy. And as I age, those tough times seem come with increasing frequency. The present is like looking through a microscope, every trouble completely visible in full relief and pristine detail.
And that’s where the ability to look through the lens of the rearview mirror – and to gaze way back – offers such sweet solace to me. “Do You Hear What I Hear” is exactly one of those looks back, and your mention of it triggered so many thoughts. It took me back to childhood, when the album was placed on the turntable and that song played through our living room (with that classic 70s green carpet) as we put up and decorated the tree. Then I was reminded of the time as a teenager I sat down at the piano, determined to learn to play that song…a goal I achieved in a couple of hours. And that reminds me of listening to local radio celebrity Doug Brown read – in his beautiful voice – “A Christmas Carol” in the afternoon before Christmas Eve service. The homemade punch with 7-Up in it. Anderson-Erickson Egg Nog, thick and creamy with an extra dash of nutmeg. Christmas cookies.
…and now it’s hard to focus on work…
Nostalgia is why I will pull out “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and the 1938 Reginald-Owen edition of “A Christmas Carol” tonight and watch them both. It takes me back to a time when tragedy – though it was still present – didn’t seem to weigh so much nor cause such drag on my psyche.
I hope you can look past these difficult times and think back to good memories and better times. As I read your post from top to bottom, I got a hopeful sense that it’s happening, at least to a degree.
A very Merry Christmas to you, Jack….and to all who come here to educate and enlighten me. You have made my year so much richer.
God bless us. Everyone.
Ah! A vote for the 1938 Christmas Carol! I guess I need to watch that one again. I fact, a project for another Christmas: I need to watch them all: that one, the Alistair Sim version, George C. Scott’s, Patrick Stewart’s, Mister Magoo, the Muppets, Albert Finney, and “Scrooged.”
That sounds like a great idea! I should probably try that as well, since I’ve only ever seen the 1938 version.
Jack,I have read your blog for years, and I feel as if I know you.I’m concerned for your safety with respect to your son. I appreciate your vulnerability discussing your life with a bunch of strangers. Having an adult child with a list of resentments living with you can be a pressure cooker.My wife and I have had experience with a similar situation, where a child was ab
Your last sentence was cut off, just so you know.
The two things I likely most remember from the Cuban Missile Crisis were (1) the satellite or more likely U-2 (the planes, not the Irish band) photos they showed on the constant news broadcasts of the long, thin containers housing the Russian missiles strewn around Cuba, and (2) the missiles set up in the farm fields around Homestead, Florida to shoot down I’m not sure what. We were only ninety miles away from Havana in our snug little house in Miami. I don’t think we were scared, as kids. It was just stuff on TV. And of course, it wasn’t anything we had any control over. It was adult stuff. And I also remember the film of the Russian transports steaming off back to the Baltic or the Black Sea with the long thin cannisters on their decks.
A very merry Christmas to you too, Jack. May it be blessed.
Merry Christmas, Jack. Soldier on, it’s all we can do.
Amazing story about Noel Regney, I continue to be dumbfounded by people who survive the ravages of combat and then proceed to have accomplished lives. I find their surviving and prospering inspirational in my dotage.
I treat one of those brutal stories of survival in “The Critic’s Choice” in my collection of stories published as “Stories from Way Out West.” Available on Amazon, Bill Fearnow author. The story is built around, among other things, the war experiences of the Berlin born son of Ukrainian Jewish musicians whose last career was as music critic for the Arizona Republic. Sorry for the plug, but attention must be paid to people like Noel Regney and your dad and the story’s Dimitry. And my favorite client (!), a retired dentist who’d jump in his car and run down to my office to hand the receptionist a check upon receiving my bill in the mail. He’d gone to college and dental school on the GI Bill after having flown his thirty plus missions as a non-commissioned B-17 pilot. Amazing.
And sorry about the trouble with the heir, Jack. Mrs. OB’s daughter, whom I adopted extremely early on, is disappointingly difficult for both of us. It’s no fun, but I do have a terrific son with Mrs. OB. A blessing you don’t have.
Christmas cheer to you and the EA Commentariat, notwithstanding its recent reduction in numbers.
Merry Christmas, Jack. You do make the world a better place.
I do hope you have a Merrier Christmas than you expect to this year. Lord knows you deserve one. You spend so much time trying to keep your head on straight when everyone else seems determined to panic. Being a voice of reason and, even more, principle, is a lonely, thankless job many days. Thank you. I pray for warmth and strength for you, and that you do not lose heart as you run your race. Merry Christmas to you, Jack, and may God protect your heart from all who seek to rob you of such Joy!
Jack-
I actually have mixed feelings about this song. Up until the last verse, its beautiful melody and explicitly Christian lyrics are sweet. But the last verse, unfortunately, reverses the Biblical story. What the king actually said, when he got the news, was “go out and kill any baby which might be the one we’ve heard about!” It’s one of the places where the brutality of the Roman Empire is featured. I wonder whether these stories of brutality have actually been key to the spread of the Christian story: love your neighbors, love your God, but never tolerate a challenge to the rulers of this region. (Two other examples come to mind: the beheading of John the Baptist at the casual request of a showgirl, and the insistence of the Jews that “they have no king but Cesar – crucify that guy before he brings the hammer down on all of us.) That’s a message that any king can get behind.
Not for posting: if you want to watch how my little Lutheran church celebrates Christmas Eve, we’re streaming it on Zoom: hopecp.org, from 6 to 7 PM tonight. It’s not elaborate. You might see the pastor’s children, ages 3 and 6, wander into the picture from time to time.
Lathechuck
I too was struck by that completely ahistorical final stanza today as well.
I actually thought the last verse was the most believable. Wind doesn’t talk, and lambs don’t talk, and how would a shepherd boy tell a king anything?
I have always assumed that the “Mighty King” was Melchior, one of the Magi, an Eastern King from Persia. He’s the one who brought the Christ child Gold.
Merry Christmas, Jack, and may you be blessed with better times and better fortune in the years ahead.
Merry Christmas Jack. You always struck me as someone who keeps his head while all others are losing there’s. Don’t let go of that!
Merry Christmas, Jack, and to the rest of the Five Strong EA commentariat, as well!
PWS
Merry Christmas, Jack, from all the Harkins brood. May the Christmas season bring you unexpected blessings.
I’m devastated to hear that your beloved child has communicated hateful thoughts (at any time, let alone this time of year). Though you don’t put much stock in it, we’ll keep you and Grant/Samantha (is the name change legalized, or just a preference?) in our prayers. May the spirits of Christmas past, present, and future encourage you both.
“Do You Hear What I Hear” is probably my favorite Christmas Carol, though for a time “Masters In This Hall” gave it a good run for its money.
Hope you have at least a peaceful and relaxing Christmas, Jack, and that the coming year brings improvements and positive resolutions to some of life’s trials…You’ve had more than your fair share.
Stay strong, and know that you’re greatly appreciated!
Merry Christmas, Jack, from another of the unnumbered commentariat.
I love this song.
And I’m dreadfully sorry about the lack of gratitude exhibited by your only child. We’ve got a similar situation over here at Haus Golden.
I know you’ve written that your son has always been physically healthy. Is there any history of emotional or psychological problems? Obviously, it’s not my business, but the death of his mother may have triggered some simmering mental health issues. I hope it gets worked out.
I am so sorry that the last two years have been so unbelievably miserable for you. I wish I had a magic wand to wave over and ease your pain. In its absence let me wish you better days, and let you know how much I appreciate and look forward to EA. It is so like a salon experience with intelligent discussions and lots of wit. Thank you for the forum.
Best hopes for a kinder, gentler, Big Beautiful New Year