All posts by Matthew Callan

Seasonal Fare

Jean Shepherd, “Christmas Cards”

Last year, I shared a few Christmas-themed Jean Shepherd shows as part of my Holiday Triumphs (the counterpart to my Holiday Horrors). If you don’t know who Jean Shepherd is or my continued obsession with him, check this out. I’ll wait here.

Back with us? So, despite sharing several of his Yuletide stories with you last year, this one eluded me, perhaps because it’s not really a story at all. It’s a show from Christmas Eve, 1964, in which he talks about trends in Christmas cards, comparing ancient cards he has to the cards he received for this holiday. His basic premise, one he often hammered on in his shows: “I submit that you will find more about a public in its attitudes toward its great rites, whatever they might be, than in any amount of pious editorials.”

It’s fascinating to listen to this show from nearly 50 years ago and hear what has changed since then, and how little hasn’t, and to get a glimpse of how Christmas cards reflect each era in which they were produced. If you listen to his descriptions of the Christmas cards he received just prior to this show, you can hear the faint echoes of the cynicism and delusion of the decade to come. Especially as the show closes, when Shepherd relates a very dark conversation he had with a junior high-aged kid about his view of the universe.

As you listen to what this kid says, keep in mind that even The Beatles had barely happened at this point in history. The 1960s weren’t quite yet “The Sixties,” but Shep was adept at recognizing a faint note of something in the air that had eluded everyone else so far. (A straw in the wind, he used to call it.)

It’s one of Shepherd’s more philosophical entries (as opposed to his “I was this kid, see…” tales). The audio picks up mid-show, and the sound quality is not fantastic, but I think you will enjoy it nonetheless. Yes, you. Don’t look at me like that.

[audio:http://66.147.244.95/~scratci7/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/shep_xmas_cards_1224641.mp3|titles=Jean Shepherd, “Christmas Cards,” 12/24/64]
Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: White 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 “White Christmas.”

BING CROSBY: I remember Irving Berlin called me up and told me he’d just composed the best song he’d ever written, maybe the best song anyone had ever written. When Irving Berlin tells you something like that, well sir, you hop in the car and drive over to his place pronto!

IRVING BERLIN: Bing came over to my studio and I played “White Christmas” for him. He lit up his pipe and nodded his head slowly. I thought he liked it, then all of a sudden he took off his belt and started thrashing my piano with it. “What’s that for?” I asked him. “I whip things when I get excited,” he said. “And when I get mad. And when I get bored. But in this case, I’m excited, because this song is gold!” Then he whipped his belt once more toward the open piano lid and broke a string. I told him he had to leave.

BING CROSBY: I knew we had to record this and get it out there for the holiday season. So we got in the studio with John Trotter Orchestra, and do you know we banged out that song in 18 minutes? I guess when you’ve got a gem like this, pal, it don’t take too long to get it right, not even for an old crooner like myself.

JOHN TROTTER, ORCHESTRA LEADER: Truth be told, I wasn’t 100 percent happy with the final take, but the band members were terrified of Bing. While they laid down the backing track, he stalked through the orchestra stands swinging a belt over his head like a lasso. It was quite menacing. The orchestra refused to go on when he accidentally let it go mid-swing and it landed in a tuba.

BING CROSBY: What a lot of people don’t remember now is that “White Christmas” wasn’t a huge hit when it first came out. The label really wanted to push another song from Holiday Inn. But around Christmas time, people just took a shine to it, especially on Armed Forces radio. It seems it reminded a lot of the boys overseas what they were missing back home. It was a real privilege to bring a bit of joy to their lives, and to perform for them in a USO tour alongside Bob Hope, who’s always been a dear friend and a great comedian.

BETTY WILSON, USO SINGER: It was great to sing for the boys, especially “White Christmas,” which really brought a smile to their faces. And I got the chance to see Bing and Bob Hope do their thing every night, which always cracked me up. Bob would make fun of Bing’s golf game and his bad luck with the horses, and Bing would whip him with his belt. We had to cut tour short, though, when Bob got hit in the eye with his buckle.

BING CROSBY: If there’s one thing I regret about “White Christmas,” it’s that I used the clout I gained from it to get Capitol to release this concept album of mine called Relax with Bing. It was six 78 rpm records of me hitting things with my belt. To make it up to them, I promised to do 700 “On the Road” pictures.

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

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 “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

HAROLD STERLING, CIA STATION CHIEF: In 1951, I was tapped to head the MK-KLAUS program. This program was coded at security level 4-7A, which meant that if President Truman had even asked me about it, I was authorized to shoot him.

The main purpose of the project was to construct a Christmas song that could combat the insidious communistic influence found in holiday fare like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Several top songwriters were conscripted into the Agency, given high level security clearances, and instructed to produce a Christmas carol that could subliminally combat Soviet propaganda. This wasn’t the first time we’d done something like this. During World War II, the OSS parachuted Cole Porter behind enemy lines, where he was instructed to charm the Nazis into surrender with his sophisticated songsmithery.

We took the songwriters and holed them up in a bunker several miles below an undisclosed location in the New Mexico desert. Several days in, however, it became apparent that they were not accustomed to working in such an austere environment. So we relocated them to a New York studio, armed with an upright piano and a stockpile of gin and Lucky Strikes. Cyanide pills were distributed in case the boys at the shoeshine stand got too nosy.

The songwriters grew much more productive here, but several had to be dismissed when it was discovered they’d ignored the purpose of the project and written the complete score to “The King and I” instead. In early October, a suitable song was finally produced. The song speaks of a tyrannical, omnipresent man in red who knows what you are doing at all times, even when you are sleeping, and warns you to watch out for his arrival.

The song was piped through the vents of unsuspecting department stores to gauge an organic response from the general populace. The results were astonishing–shoppers breaking out into spontaneous fits of whistling, foot tapping, and general Yuletide merriment. This experiment led us to release it into the holiday environment as an airborne contaminant, where it remains to this day.

The song was later used as a trigger device for a highly trained assassin, who was hypnotized into such a state where he was not aware of his own abilities, but would become “activated” again once he heard the song. The plan backfired while he was on assignment in Guatemala and heard a local folk tune that resembled the trigger song, then mistakenly sniped the enormous stone figures at a Mayan temple.

MK-KLAUS was slowly phased out after that unfortunate incident, though some of its principle figures were later assembled to compose a Cuban jazz riff that could make Castro’s beard fall out.