All posts by Matthew Callan

Endeavors Elsewhere

Me, Elswhere: The Baseball Hall of Shame and Cherry Cherry Christmas

I’m blowin’ up on the interwebs today, and I want to shout it from the rooftops! Or here. Yes, here will do.

First, you should know that I’ve written my first feature for The Classical, the new webbed site that aims to be heavy on the latter half of “sportswriting.” It’s about The Baseball Hall of Shame, a series of books that were incredibly influential on my young mind, and, my thesis goes, the young minds of many a lad who grew up to write about sports on the internet. I’m very proud of this piece and it was super fun to write, so tweet, like it on Facebook, put it on your MySpace doodads, and whatever else you need to do, but get the word out there, capisce? And while there, you can also check out a quick blog post I did on the subject of the dad who forced his kid to cry on camera about Albert Pujols. Fun!

But wait! If you act now, you can also read me at Low Times, where I survey my “favorite” holiday song of all time, Neil Diamond’s cray-tacular “Cherry Cherry Christmas.” If you’ve never heard it before, you’re in for a treat. If you have heard it before, my condolences!

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: Frosty the Snowman

Did you know you know that record labels used to release special commentary tracks to play along with 45s, much like the ones available on your modern DVDs? It’s true! This holiday season, Scratchbomb has transcribed some Yuletide examples of this bygone format and presents them to you now for your reading pleasure. Today, the commentary track for “Frosty the Snowman.”

WALTER “JACK” ROLLINS, COMPOSER: I’d always wanted to write a holiday song for kids that reflected my love of black magic. Then, one winter day I was walking down the street, and I saw some kids building a snowman that was way taller than them. The kids bit off a little more than they could chew, and the snowman’s head came rolling off and knocked one of the kids down. That inspired the vision of a terrifying snow golem who comes to life somehow and terrorizes the cops and citizens of his town.

GENE AUTRY, SINGER/ACTOR: Well sir, I’d been looking for a Christmas song to do after the big success of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” And if there’s anything I love better than Christmas, or ropin’ cattle and ridin’ across the lone prairie, it’s the dark arts. So I was definitely on board with Walter’s idea. There was just one problem–how exactly would this hoary demon come to life? We racked our puzzlers for days, it seemed, trying to figure this out.

ROLLINS: Then I thought, well, kids always put hats on top of their snowmen, right? What if the hat they found was enchanted? Or if it contained the soul of an ancient evildoer who could animate the snowman with the power of his deathless hatred?

AUTRY: And I said, “Mister, I think you just came up with a number one hit!” Now, some of the boys in the band weren’t too keen on the idea, being a little superstitious and all. So we toned down a few of the more explicit elements, like the goat horn solo and whatnot. But darn if I wasn’t right about the number one hit part! Billboard called it “the first hit single to explicitly invoke Satan!”

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Did you know you know that record labels used to release special commentary tracks to play along with 45s, much like the ones available on your modern DVDs? It’s true! This holiday season, Scratchbomb has transcribed some Yuletide examples of this bygone format and presents them to you now for your reading pleasure. Today, the commentary track for “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

KIM GANNON, LYRICIST: I wrote this song in 1943, from the point of a view of a soldier who is overseas for the holidays and can only be home “in his dreams.” So he imagines snow and mistletoe and other comforting features of a traditional Christmas, while he awaits orders to march straight into the mouth of hell itself. I wrote a lot of songs for our enlisted men back during those years, because I felt trying to cheer them up was the least I could do for them while they were fighting so bravely for all of us. Unfortunately, nobody showed any interest in songs like “The Bullet With Your Name On It,” “Your 4F Best Friend Is Taking Out Your Best Girl,” and “That Next Bomber Mission Will Surely Be Your Last.” That all changed when Bing Crosby took a pass at “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

BING CROSBY: I couldn’t resist. It had such a beautiful melody, and contained a shocking amount of ironic hopelessness. What can I say? It hit me like a belt whip across the heart.

KIM GANNON, LYRICIST: Needless to say, this changed my life. With my foot in the door, I was finally able to get some of my other compositions recorded. Rosemary Clooney did a fantastic version of “Everyone You Know Will Be Dead Some Day,” and Frank Sinatra did a whole album of my songs called Ol’ Blue Eyes Sings Songs for a Swingin’ Party.