Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas

This clip is brought to you by Coca-Cola. The holidays always find a way. It's about enjoying the real magic of the season by surrounding yourself with good friends and family, delicious food, and of course, an ice cold Coke. This is our very first episode as Locatora Radio for the MyCultura network.

We're beyond thrilled. We're in a legitimate studio space and we have not seen the inside of one of these in many years. Coca-Cola, proud partner of the MyCultura podcast network.

Listen to new episodes of your favorite MyCultura shows available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Cartier, Rolex, Gucci, Prada, Jordan, Adidas, Bottega Veneta. At eBay, it's real or it's getting the fake out. eBay's team of luxury authenticators make sure that you never get faked over. Watches inspected by watch aficionados, sneakers checked by legit sneaker heads, handbags examined by handbag connoisseurs, and jewelry in the scopes of expert gemologists. The details inspected, the fakes rejected. And sure, your next purchase is the real deal with eBay's authenticity guarantee.

Everyone deserves real. Visit eBay.com for terms. When the world gets in the way of your music, try the new Bose QuietComfort earbuds too. Next-gen earbuds uniquely tuned to the shape of your ears. They use exclusive Bose technology that personalizes the audio performance to fit you, delivering the world's best noise cancellation and powerfully immersive sound, so you can hear and feel every detail of the music you love. Bose QuietComfort earbuds too. Sound shape to you.

To learn more, visit Bose.com. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories and we tell stories about everything here on this show. And today and around the Christmas season, we bring you special stories about a special time and the stories behind the stories of our Christmas traditions. And today we're going to focus on Christmas songs we love to sing.

And these are fascinating stories we hope will enrich your holiday celebration. Ace Collins is the author of Stories Behind the Best Loved Songs of Christmas. Collins is an ace at Song History and he's here to introduce you to people you've never met, stories you've never heard, and meanings you'd never have imagined.

Here's Ace. One of the best Christmas songs is O Holy Night. You can trace it back almost 200 years to France when a local priest asked a parishioner who was the commissioner of wines to write a poem for the Christmas Eve service.

He was riding in a carriage on the way to Paris. He wrote the poem, was so impressed with it that he took it to a friend of his who wrote operas and he asked him, can you write music to this poem? The man read the poem, said it's a beautiful poem, but I think I'm not the right guy to do it. He said, no, no, you have this handle on on music.

I want you to write it. So he put together some beautiful music to go with it. It was sung in a little church in France that evening of Christmas Eve mass and people were so impressed it became a tradition in that church and within five years had spread clear across France. And then it began to spread across England. Ironically enough, in about 1840, the French church threw it out of services because they deemed it was too secular. Think of O Holy Night being secular.

But the whole point was this. The man who had written the music to go with the lyrics was Jewish and they didn't want a Jewish man's music associated with Christmas. Well, that didn't stop the English from singing it at Christmas time. And then it came to the United States in the 1850s, not as a Christmas song, but as a part of the abolitionist movement. Because in the third verse, there are a number of lines dealing with change shall he break for the slave is our brother.

In his name, all oppression shall cease. It was after the Civil War that this song, O Holy Night, which is one of the most beautiful of all carols, began to be a part of the caroling movement here in the United States and was brought into churches. It's also a song that has two other great stories with it.

One, the Franco-Prussian War. On Christmas Eve, some French guy jumped out of a foxhole and sang that song. He was answered by a German who sang Silent Night and the two sides got together and had 24 hours of celebrations of Christmas.

So it really was the song that brought peace on earth. Let's go ahead to 1906 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A man named Fessenden is working on doing something that everyone thought was impossible. He is going to create a transmitter that is so strong it will broadcast the human voice. Now Marconi even said this was impossible. Edison said it was impossible. Alexander Graham Bell said you can't have a transmitter that can do that. Yet on Christmas Eve, 1906, Fessenden tried his new invention out. And people who were in telegraph offices and ships at sea and newsrooms and weather bureaus suddenly heard his voice reading the second chapter of Luke rather than dot dot dash dash.

Now imagine what you must have felt like to hear a human voice coming over these little speakers when you had been told it was impossible. Then Fessenden picked up a violin and the very first song ever played on radio was Oh Holy Night. I get asked about the 12 Days of Christmas a great deal and there's some controversy with this song. There are some people that believe that the meaning of the 12 Days of Christmas was added after the song was written. It was not written as anything but a kind of a silly little Christmas song. And I don't know if it was written as a code song or if it became a code song. But I can tell you this, the Catholic Church did use it, I've talked to Catholic historians, I've talked in both the United States and Great Britain, as a code song when Catholicism was outlawed by the Church of England. And this song, the 12 Days of Christmas, therefore had religious meanings that were attached to the lyrics. Once again, were they written as code or did the Catholic Church seize upon this and find a way to make it a code? I think it was written as code. But I don't know that, you know, the argument is going to go back and forth on that for eternity.

None of us will ever know which is right and which is wrong. But I can tell you what the code words in this were and what they meant. A Partridge in a Pear Tree. The Partridge is the only bird that will lay down its life for its nest.

That Partridge in a Pear Tree, therefore, is about Jesus Christ. The second day of Christmas with two turtle doves. What are the two turtle doves?

Those are the Gospel, the Old and the New Testaments. Three French hens. Well, that is a very interesting thing because those birds represent faith, hope and love.

It goes back to 1 Corinthians 13. Fourth day of Christmas, four birds calling. Well, what are the four birds calling? They're the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Fifth day of Christmas, five golden rings. That's the Torah, the five books of the Old Testament. Six days of Christmas is my true love gave to me six geese a-laying.

What could that be? Well, you know, those lyrics can be translated back to the first story found in the Bible. Each egg represents a day when the world was created.

The seventh day, of course, when it was hatched. Seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me seven swans a-swimming. What are those seven swans a-swimming?

Well, that's the gifts of the Spirit. Prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading and compassion. Eight maids a-milking. There was nothing lower in England than being a milkmaid. And this is the story of Christ coming not just for the King, but also for the least of these.

And the milkmaid in England, they were definitely the least of these. And you've been listening to Ace Collins tell the story of one of the best love Christmas songs of all time. And by the way, just think about it. And we take these things for granted, hearing a voice through a speaker. And what are the first things ever read?

A passage from the Gospel. And of course, O Holy Night, the first song ever performed and on Christmas Eve of all days. When we come back, more of the stories behind the best loved songs of Christmas here on Our American Stories. Here at Our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.

But we can't do it without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love our stories and America like we do, please go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Help us keep the great American stories coming.

That's OurAmericanStories.com. When the world gets in the way of your music, try the new Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2. Next gen earbuds uniquely tuned to the shape of your ears. They use exclusive Bose technology that personalizes the audio performance to fit you, delivering the world's best noise cancellation and powerfully immersive sound. So you can hear and feel every detail of the music you love. Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2, sound shape to you.

To learn more, visit Bose.com. Tis the season for something special. The Starbucks sugar cookie almond milk latte. Red and green sprinkles, non-dairy buttery yum and blonde espresso. Every sip is a moment made merrier.

Find your cheer on the Starbucks app today. Hey, there's a better way to fly. Instead of being stuck in endless lines and packed onto planes, try simplifying your travel with Surf Air. Save an average of two hours on every trip and avoid crowded airports with a new way to fly private. With Surf Air, you'll fly from smaller airports closer to your home. There are no lines, no waiting and no stress. SurfAir.com, the best alternative to commercial air travel that makes flying easy. Get a free quote on your next flight at SurfAir.com.

There's a better way to fly private. And we continue here with our American stories and our special Christmas edition. Let's pick up where we last left off with Ace Collins sharing with us the story of the coded Catholic Christmas carol, The 12 Days of Christmas Here's Ace. Nine ladies dancing. What was nine ladies dancing? Well, those are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. You know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, gentleness and self-control. Ten Lords of Leaping is pretty easy.

You know, that is the judges and the law. Ten Lords. Well, that's also the Ten Commandments.

The Eleventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 11 pipers piping. Those are the disciples that took the story out to the world. Well, you may say there's 12 disciples. Judas did not take the word out. The 11 disciples took the word out.

And finally, the last one is 12 drummers drumming. Well, that you can tie that directly to the Catholic Church because that's the Apostles Creed. And so that is the story behind the 12 Days of Christmas.

And I think it's one of the most fascinating stories of all because it was, essentially speaking, a teacher's aid. And that makes it very special when you look at history. And one of the things we've got to recognize here, most of our great carols and most of our great traditions came about because of the missionaries, the early missionaries in the Catholic Church as well. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude for all the different things and elements of Christmas that they brought to us from the cultures that they went out and had missionary contact with. Getting back to one of the little known things, there's so many great stories about Silent Night.

But did you realize this? The little bitty church in Austria where that little poem was brought to life is St. Nicholas. And that to me is just, you know, and we would not know the story of Silent Night, nor would we sing it because it was put together because the organ didn't work for one time only. Somebody had to fix the organ and the guy who came by to fix the organ said, what did you do for music on Christmas Eve? And the priest played him that song. He wrote down the lyrics. He wrote down the music and took it everywhere he went in Europe, fixing organs. And within 20 years it had spread to the United States and the priest who was this little priest, Joseph Moore, and opened up Austria had no idea that anybody was singing his song because he'd even quit singing it. And he went to Cologne, Germany one time and there it was ringing from this cathedral.

He went, how did they find out about that, you know? And so he died without ever being given credit for writing the song, you know. But what an impact this little priest who never went into anything except little churches in Austria had on the world because that is the Jesus loves me of all Christmas carols.

You know, everybody knows it. I love to look at what music has meant to traditions because I don't think you can have Christmas without the music. You know, I've always told people at my house it wasn't Christmas until you heard Bing sing White Christmas and Elvis sing Blue Christmas. You had to have both of those songs play before it really became Christmas. And the music of the season was not always that important if you were not a Catholic.

Yes, Glory and Excess of Deus dates back probably 1900 years. It dates back to at least 130, part of that song does. And songs like O Come, O Come, Emmanuel date back to the 900s. But most of our Christmas music is relatively new. It was birthed after the Civil War by something that happened first in Victorian England and then spread to the United States and that was Christmas caroling. And suddenly with Christmas caroling you had the opportunity to write new songs that people could sing as they went home. And so new songs that people could sing as they went house to house caroling in the 1800s and 1890s.

And with the invention of the phonograph record that really took off. One of the songs though that I think is the is the most interesting of all of the songs that created tradition like no other was a song that was written in Medford, Massachusetts in about 1840. And it was written by a preacher's son for a Thanksgiving gathering in the community. His father had assigned him the task of creating a song for the Christmas choir and he was sitting at the piano only piano in Medford, Massachusetts and couldn't concentrate because of all the noise outside his door. He went outside his door and these teenage boys were attempting to impress teenage girls by having drag races with a horse drawn sleigh. Okay, I mean that's what it was this this was what inspired him.

He didn't go in and write something for Thanksgiving. He wrote an 1840s beach boy song. It's called Jingle Bells.

If you listen to it, it is all about guys trying to impress girls by going fast with their hot rods of the period. Well, the people who came in that Thanksgiving to hear this song were so impressed with the children's choir they begged for them to put it in the Christmas service as well. So imagine this reverent Christmas service and in the middle of it these kids are singing Jingle Bells. Well, the people who visited from Boston and New York City thought it was a Christmas song and they took it back to New York and Boston as a Christmas song and by the 1860s it had spread all over the United States. Courier Knives were using it for inspiration.

One horse sleigh, the images of snow, the images of children gathering, the image of riding in these sleighs all goes back to the greatest Thanksgiving song of all time, Jingle Bells, which is nothing more than a beach boy song. But it is that song that has projected into our minds. Hollywood has used it.

TV has used it. Heaven knows how many hallmark movies have used it now as a part of their important tradition. You can't pick up a Christmas card without having the inspiration of Jingle Bells all over it. And I think that's one of the most interesting things about American Christmas is that American Christmas was literally defined by a song about drag racing one-horse sleighs in New England and was meant only for one Thanksgiving service. It's the greatest Thanksgiving song of all time.

But I mean you think about it, it is totally in fact, here's something else that is funny that goes with it too, that it ties right into it. The song Jingle Bell Rock, the first great rock and roll Christmas song. Jingle Bell Rock is not about dancing. It's two guys from New England who happen to live in New Orleans then wrote it about a New England Christmas about rocking along as on a one-horse drawn sleigh. And if you listen to the lyrics, there's nothing about dancing or anything else.

But when Brenda Lee cut it at 12 years old, Owen Bradley was the producer, and it became this monster hit. Everybody thought it was a rock and roll song. And the guys were initially appalled that people thought it was a dance song until the royalty checks started coming in and then suddenly, oh yeah, that's fine.

We meant that all along, you know. But that is what Jingle Bell Rock was all about. It is so funny because seven of the top 10 best-selling Christmas songs of all time were written by Jewish people. White Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Holly Jolly Christmas, Jingle Bell Rock, Holly Jolly Christmas, Rudolph and Jingle Bell Rock were all written by Johnny Marks. And so you start, and I asked a friend of mine who was Jewish one time, I said, you know, why? Are there so many great Christmas songs written by Jewish people? He said, well, it was a Jewish guy's birthday. You know, of course, I found out the stories behind all of them, and that's not the reason, but you know, that we're still, you know, that's a great line. I mean, that is just really a good line. I started keeping track about nine, 10 years ago of what the number one song story that people ask about on Christian radio and on secular radio.

I was curious as to how they lined up. The number one song story on secular radio that people ask about is A Holy Night, which I found fascinating. The number one song on Christian radio that people ask me about is Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. Grandma got run over by a reindeer, walking home from our house Christmas Eve.

You can say there's no such thing as Santa, but that's for me and Grandpa we believe. The guy who wrote Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, he was a Vanderbilt student, he was a Vanderbilt student, and he had a band, and his band betting you can't write a song where somebody dies in the first verse and have anybody listen to it, and that's so he did. And it became a hit for several different groups, including Elmo and Patsy, probably had the biggest hit on it. You know, Scott Bell, who wrote that song, what did he do with his life? He's an air traffic controller.

She had hoof prints on her forehead and incriminating claws marks on her back. And you're listening to the infectious storytelling of Ace Collins. It doesn't get any better, folks, when we come back.

More of these great stories of our best loved Christmas songs here on Our American Stories. When the world gets in the way of your music, try the new Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2, next-gen earbuds uniquely tuned to the shape of your ears. They use exclusive Bose technology that personalizes the audio performance to fit you, delivering the world's best noise cancellation and powerfully immersive sound, so you can hear and feel every detail of the music you love. Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2, sound shape to you.

To learn more, visit Bose.com. Cozy up to a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte with cream, crunchy caramel brulee toppings, steamed milk and espresso. Just bring your own comfy sweater.

Find your cheer on the Starbucks app today. Hey, there's a better way to fly. Instead of being stuck in endless lines and packed onto planes, try simplifying your travel with Surf Air. Save an average of two hours on every trip and avoid crowded airports with a new way to fly private. With Surf Air, you'll fly from smaller airports closer to your home. There are no lines, no waiting and no stress. SurfAir.com, the best alternative to commercial air travel that makes flying easy. Get a free quote on your next flight at SurfAir.com.

There's a better way to fly private. And we continue with our American stories in our special Christmas edition. And we do this each year around the Christmas holiday season. And we do it because we love it and we hope you love it. But these stories are stories that we think need to be heard.

And well, we have great people telling them. And you're listening to Ace Collins tell the stories behind the best love songs of Christmas. Let's pick up where we last left off.

Here's Ace. You know, I mentioned earlier that it's not Christmas till you heard Bing and Elvis, maybe Perry Como. But think about this. Bing Crosby would probably be forgotten today without all of his Christmas hits. It wouldn't be true of Elvis, but it would be true of Bing.

There are other people who had one hit. Bobby Helms, who was Jingle Bell Rock, who we still listen to every year, who otherwise would have been lost forever. Dinah Shore charted 450 times, never had a Christmas song. So nobody ever remembers one of the top charting artists of the 1940s and early 50s because she didn't ever find that Christmas song. Christmas songs make you immortal if you're an artist.

You know, that is just, it's mind boggling. If you have a Christmas hit, people are going to be listening to you for the next hundred years. That's a big part of the fact that your identity is going to be hooked on to a large degree to a Christmas song. If you're an artist from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and they're still playing your stuff, they're playing your stuff by and large because it's Christmas. And if you didn't have that Christmas hit, they wouldn't be playing your stuff. And so Christmas hits do make you, to a certain degree, immortal.

You know, you'll come back every late November and early December and you'll be a part of Christmas movies on Hallmark forever because they will play a blurb of you singing one of those songs. And, you know, it's ironic that Elvis's big hit was Blue Christmas when his best Christmas song was Why Can't Every Day Be Like Christmas, which is still played, but not like Blue Christmas is played. And Blue Christmas had been around for 11 years, 12 years before Elvis cut it and had gone nowhere and not been a major hit at all.

Then Elvis cut it. The family of the man who wrote that song told me that Blue Christmas means green at their house because of the royalty checks that Elvis generates every Christmas for them. So, yeah, you know, Irving Berlin's take on Why Christmas, when he told, when he gave it to Bing Crosby, Irving Berlin told Bing, I've written some great songs for this movie Holiday Inn, but my Christmas song is just not very good. And he played it for Bing and said, oh my gosh, Irving, this is perfect. And Berlin said, are you sure?

I don't think it captures the, captures what Christmas is all about. And he said, no, no, don't change a word. We'll, we'll sing it. You know, a great story behind Silver Bells.

That was in the Bob Hope movie Lemon Drop Kid. Bob thought he finally had a hit. Christmas song.

Bing had four. He wanted one too, his best friend, all these hits. And so when he sang it in the movie, he thought, okay, I'm going to go into this fall and cut this song and release it for Christmas because the movie wasn't coming out till Christmas anyway. Well, Bing heard, listened to Bob talking about the song, went into the studio, cut Silver Bells and beat Bob to the marketplace with it. And Bing Crosby had the hit on Silver Bells and Bob still never had a Christmas hit.

So his best friend beat him again. Mathis is another one. You know, I mentioned Como because Como's only listened to because he had all those Christmas specials. And you think about the song, Christmas is amazing because years before Rosa Parks broke the color barrier on the buses and Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Nat King Cole took a Mel Torme song and broke the color barrier at Christmas with the Christmas song. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose. And, you know, and Mel Torme had to fight to take that song he had written and give it to Nat King Cole because there were a lot of radio stations across the United States that wouldn't play music of a black man. And ultimately speaking, that song was so powerful and that song touched so many lives that in 1946 it really became the song that brought a bit of color to Christmas.

And I think that's one of the great stories. But Christmas songs that last, you know, either have to have a different point of view like Mary Did You Know, which is, you know, Mark Lowry's incredible song, or White Christmas, I'll Be Home for Christmas were released during World War II, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Judy Garland. I'm not sure they would have been huge hits without the fact of what those songs meant to a nation divided by a world war with so many families separated during from 1941 to 1945. And so I think the timing of when a song is released, Do You Hear What I Hear released during the Civil War, it's timing that has to do, I guess, with everything in line, but it's particularly true at Christmas. If your song comes at a time when people are insecure and they need something to latch onto, that it's easy to latch onto a Christmas song like White Christmas or I'll Be Home for Christmas or Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as a secular prayer during that holiday season. And I think, you know, I think that is why those songs have resonated for so long when you had some really great Christmas songs that were written during that same time that right before World War II or right after World War II that we don't listen to or sing anymore.

Timing is everything when it comes to holidays. The song stories are really good. I mean, you know, you think about Gloria in Excellus Deus, and that's a song that goes back to probably 130 AD. There was a church leader long before we were celebrating Christmas that instructed all congregations in the Christian church at that time that whenever the second chapter of Luke was read that the congregation should sing Gloria in Excellus Deus. And therefore, at least part of that song that we know as Gloria now existed 1890 years ago. And if that is the case and all the different congregations knew that song, you know, then it had to have been passed down earlier than that. So it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to think that song is probably predates that 130 Edict by, you know, anywhere from 70 to 80 years.

And therefore, the guy who wrote that may have actually known Jesus. And that makes that song very, very powerful indeed. Great job, as always, to Greg Hengler for putting this storytelling together and for getting us and bringing us Ace Collins, who is the author of the stories behind the best love songs of Christmas and indeed what storytelling we just heard.

The story of the stories behind the best love songs of Christmas are special episodes of our special storytelling each Christmas season here on Our American Stories. When the world gets in the way of your music, try the new Bose QuietComfort earbuds to next gen earbuds uniquely tuned to the shape of your ears. They use exclusive Bose technology that personalizes the audio performance to fit you delivering the world's best noise cancellation and powerfully immersive sound so you can hear and feel every detail of the music you love. Bose QuietComfort earbuds to sound shape to you.

To learn more, visit Bose.com. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre based stations from iHeartRadio all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas or North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TV and select Samsung TVs. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeart Radio on the Roku Channel.

Happy streaming tonight. Try nature. America's number one drug free sleep aid brand nature melatonin gummies are made with clean ingredients to help reset your natural sleep cycle for less interrupted sleep because a good night's sleep makes your next day your best day. Natural melatonin gummies sleep tonight live tomorrow. Melatonin helps with occasional sleeplessness. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent diseases.