Thursday, December 25, 2014

Unusual Stories Behind Christmas Songs

Some interesting notes about favorite Christmas songs courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

Known in English as "Silent Night," "Stille Nacht" was written by Austrian priest Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber. They performed the song at a Christmas mass in 1818 accompanied by guitar, and the tune later spread across Europe.

"Jingle Bells," copyrighted in 1857 by James Pierpont (uncle of J.P. Morgan), was originally not a holiday song at all. It was written for a Thanksgiving church service, as legend has it, and was so popular, it was performed again at Christmas.


Several well-known tunes emerged from films of the 1940s and '50s. Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," sung by Bing Crosby in the 1942 "Holiday Inn," has become the most recorded holiday song to date, with more than 500 versions.


The "Singing Cowboy" Gene Autry initially balked at recording "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," thinking it didn't fit his image. His wife convinced him otherwise, and the 1949 song became his biggest seller.

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