All posts by Matthew Callan

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: Deck the Halls

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 “Deck the Halls.”

RODERICK WINTHROP, ARRANGER/LYRICIST: Years ago, I had the chance to spend a cold winter’s eve at the estate of eccentric old baron who would no doubt wish to remain anonymous in this story. He regaled us with his many tales of frivolity and ribaldry. It was quite the caprice, I should say!

Later in the evening, as we relaxed with a fine amontillado and a few of the less hearty members of our party retired to their rooms, the baron took to his piano and favored us with a few obscure airs. Some were of his own composition, others discovered during his extensive ethnographic travails. We particularly enjoyed his rendition of a song that was part of the scalping ceremony among certain savage tribes of the ancient Picts.

However, we were most enchanted when our host played us a lilting, jaunty tune we’d never heard before. It sounded perfect for the Yuletide season, a sing-a-long for a cheer-filled wassailing.

The baron tried to disabuse us of this notion. According to him, it was a medieval Welsh folk song used to give homage to a feared demon that lived high atop Mount Snowdon. He further told us it was still fervently believed by the few remaining druidic types in the Welsh hills that repeated playing of the song could awaken the beast and set his wrath upon the earth.

I for one have never been much for superstition, and seeing as how the tune itself was in the public domain, I set about writing my own cheerful lyrics to it. The baron implored me not to, and even perished by his own hand when I refused to heed his warning. I assumed that even if there was any truth to the legend, one would need millions of voices reciting it simultaneously, which was frankly impossible.

Of course, now with these newfangled Edison cylinders–such as the one you are listening to right now–it is technically possible to have millions of voices singing the song all at once. So I suppose we shall see if it really is a rallying call to a deathless beast. I shall watch these developments with great anticipation!

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: Let It Snow

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 “Let It Snow.”

SAMMY CAHN, LYRICIST: One year right around the holidays, I felt like getting away by myself for a while. So I rented a cabin up in the Catskills, far away from everything, the nearest town 12 miles down the road. I planned to relax, commune with nature, and reflect.

A few days into my trip, the area got hit by an historic storm, almost three feet of snow overnight. The drifts piled against the front door and all the windows, to the point where all sunlight was blotted out. With temperatures hovering near zero, there was no chance of the stuff melting any time soon. I was, for all intents and purposes, trapped.

I had enough food to last me for a few weeks, but with no natural light coming in and no hope of leaving, I began to receive these strange visions. They were simple, primitive, like cave drawings. I felt like they came from some deep, primal part of my brain that I’d never been able to tap into before.

After five days, the visions grew more persistent, and terrifying. I decided I had to get out somehow, or else risk losing my sanity. I found an old rusty garden trowel and managed to slowly dig a tunnel through the snow piled against one of the windows. I emerged to find a world enveloped in whiteness, devoid of any signs of humanity, as if all traces of us had been erased.

Finally free, and not knowing when I’d be able to get home, I took off for the forest to gather up some firewood and see if I could find any other people. The sun was setting, and before I knew it, I was deep in a dark forest, enveloped in eerie quiet, with only the light of the moon glinting through the branches.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard a bone-chilling snarl. I barely had time to react and wonder what it was before I found myself face to face with a ravenous wolf. It pounced from the darkness and bared its fearsome fangs, intent on ripping out my throat. I could feel deeply buried instincts kick in, a strength I never knew I had, and I grappled with that wolf with all my might, knowing that to lose would mean my life.

We struggled for what seemed like hours. At times, I wanted to give up, but something within in me would not allow it. Finally, the wolf let go of me and collapsed to the snowy forest floor, completely exhausted. I did the same, and the world went black.

I was rescued two days later. When I awoke in the hospital, I did not recognize the man who stared back at me in the mirror. Bearded, grizzled, witness to a mighty struggle, I was forever changed. I asked the doctor what became of the wolf I fought with. “Wolf?” he replied, giving me an odd look. “There was no wolf. There haven’t been wolves in those mountains since, oh, caveman times, I’d say.”

I poured the whole experience into a set of lyrics, leaving my very soul upon the page, in a song I was sure would change the world as much as the writings of Jack London, or Ernest Hemingway. I captured the struggle between the modern and the primeval, how in each one of us there is a warrior waiting to burst forth and frighten us with its savagery.

Then Frank Sinatra wanted to record it and paid me a couple C-notes to “cute up that balloon juice.” Asshole.

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: It’s a Marshmallow World

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 “It’s a Marshmallow World.”

CARL SIGMAN, LYRICIST: I worked with some great composers over the years. Duke Ellington was probably the greatest, in terms of being a true artist and generous collaborator. But even he was very close-minded when it came to my desire to write about food. I composed these gorgeous lyrics about a glazed ham, but Duke just couldn’t wrap his head around them, and decided to title the song “Mood Indigo” instead.

So when I got the chance to write a Christmas song for Bing Crosby, I leaped at the chance. When I was a kid, I’d always imagined that the “white” in “White Christmas” was actually frosting, either on a donut or some kind of star-shaped cookie. I was not deterred by the fact that every single person I ever mentioned this to told me I was dead wrong.

I brought Bing some special holiday lyrics I’d been sitting on for quite some time, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to unveil them. The song was about how the new-fallen snow looks like marshmallows laying on the trees and bushes, and the sun looks a little like pumpkin, and sometimes other people walking in the street look like drumsticks with feet to me. In the final draft, I left that last bit out.

Things did not go as planned. In fact, after Bing read through the first verse, he chased me around the studio while whipping me with his belt. I was so devastated, I went home and thought about giving up the songwriting game altogether. Eventually, I poured my pain and frustration into a set of heart-rending verses about muffins.

As luck would have it, Bing was contractually obligated to release another single before the end of the year, and he had no choice but to record my song. He told me, “If this platter flops, there’s a double belt whipping in your future, pally.”

My faith in food paid off when “Marshmallow World” became a huge hit. It even inspired a few knockoffs, like “Macaroon Planet” and “Pfeffernuss Nation.” I took this as a compliment, in part because the idea of a macaroon planet sounds intriguingly delicious.

So Bing did not double belt-whip me for failing to produce a hit. He did do so years later for completely different reasons, and he also tried to cave my head in with a putter, but that’s another story.

Sadly, despite this success, I’ve never been able to sell any more food-based lyrics. Although for years, I’ve been working on an operetta about a pot roast who learns to love.