I have a soft spot for songs that take a figure from a religion and helps us see the human side of that figure. After all, as humans we can best connect to understanding other human qualities, so songs that make that connection have a special power. A beautiful song that makes this connection is Richard Shindell’s “The Ballad of Mary Magdalene,” which captures the heartbreak of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Jesus loved me this I know, Why on earth did he ever have to go? He was always faithful; He was always kind; But he walked off with this heart of mine.
“The Ballad of Mary Magdalene” first appeared on Shindell’s album Blue Divide (1994), and he also recorded the song along with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky in their “supergroup” Cry Cry Cry on their 1998 self-titled album. More recently, it appears on Shindell’s live album, Courier (2012).
Shindell has a distinctive voice that is great at capture the pathos behind a song. The video below features Richard Shindell playing “The Ballad of Mary Magdalene” at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio on February 24, 2010.
What is your favorite song about a religious figure that captures a human connection? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Rolling Stone lists Springsteen’s cover of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” as one of the greatest rock Christmas songs of all time. Springsteen’s link to the song goes back several decades. Fans and radio stations played Springsteen’s version before it was officially released when a live 1975 Long Island recording finally appeared on the B-Side to “My Hometown” in 1985.
Earlier this month on December 4, 2012, Bruce Springsteen pulled out his classic cover of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and it was captured in a good quality recording. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice this year, you cannot help but smiling at this performance. [December 2013 Update: The December 4, 2012 performance is no longer available on a high-quality video, so below is a performance from 2007.]
The song “The Little Drummer Boy,” written in 1941, led to a classic 1960s TV holiday special as well as some iconic versions of the song.
This post examines the TV special and the story behind the song, “The Little Drummer Boy.” The TV show The Little Drummer Boy (1968) was always one of my favorite Christmas specials. The holiday special was a Rankin/Bass production that featured two Hollywood legends, with actress Greer Garson narrating the special and actor Jose Ferrer providing the voice for one of the characters. Yet, unlike other TV specials, it is no longer shown on network TV and has been relegated to ABC Family since 2006.
A Darker Holiday Classic
Part of the reason The Little Drummer Boy may not be as beloved as other specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) is that except for the title song, the music is not as memorable as it is in some other shows. But the main reason the show is the poor step-brother of Christmas specials is that the story of the angry little boy Aaron was darker than many other annual Christmas specials.
The darkness is first found in the song “The Little Drummer Boy,” which has a melancholy sound around the rhythm of the drum. The title makes it sound like a happy song, and nothing sad really happens in the song, but there is a sad aspect of the story.
Unlike many other Christmas songs about the joy and miracle of Christ’s birth, “The Little Drummer Boy” humanizes the baby Jesus, connecting him to other smiling babies. This reminder of the human aspect of the baby foreshadows the human suffering he would find at Calgary.
The TV show further reminds us of the future suffering by featuring the boy’s lamb facing death before being “resurrected.” Few Christmas songs and specials capture the suffering and death aspect of the Christ story. They instead focus on the joy of birth along with other seasonal reminders like bells and elves. And as a kid, who wants to be taught a lesson at Christmas about hate and love?
When I started writing this post, the entire episode was available on YouTube but it has since been taken down. Instead, here is the end of the show:
The Creators of the TV Special
New Yorker Romeo Muller wrote the screenplay that Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass made into The Little Drummer Boy TV special. Muller also wrote the screenplays for such holiday TV classics as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (1970), and Frosty the Snowman (1969).
Like The Little Drummer Boy, each of Muller’s specials have a sadness underlying the happy endings, giving each a depth and complexity. That depth may help explain why we still return to these shows even as adults. Heck, apparently, Libertarians love “The Little Drummer Boy” holiday special too.
The Song “The Little Drummer Boy”
Regarding the song, American composer and music teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis wrote the song we know as “The Little Drummer Boy” in 1941, although it was originally known as “Carol of the Drum.” There are a number of good versions. On YouTube you can find a variety of covers ranging from a version by Jimi Hendrix to one by Faith Hill to Grace Jones performing for Pee Wee Herman.
Surprisingly, though, there are not as many recent classic versions as there are for some other Christmas songs, perhaps because “The Little Drummer Boy” is more religious than some of the other holiday songs. Still, Bob Seger recorded a memorable version for the original A Very Special Christmas album, and below he performs the song in concert.
More recently, Justin Bieber and Busta Rhymes created a version of “Little Drummer Boy” that at least some think is one of the worst Christmas recordings of all time. But the kids seem to like it. You may judge for yourself.
The Crosby-Bowie Version of “The Little Drummer Boy”
But perhaps the most famous version is from another TV show, Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas (1977). When David Bowie, who was a fan of Bing Crosby was asked to sing ‘The Little Drummer Boy,” he was not happy because he did not think the song suited his voice. So, songwriters Buz Kohan, Larry Grossman, and Ian Frasier wrote “Peace on Earth” to go with the song as a counterpoint melody.
We are drawn to this Bowie-Crosby version because of the odd pairing of singers. Also, during a still tumultuous time following the divisions created by Watergate and the Vietnam War, the nation found a healing plea from two people of vastly different generations singing about “Peace on Earth.”
But we stay and return again and again to this version simply because it is a beautiful rendition of the song.
Crosby and Bowie recorded their version in a TV studio in September 1977, but Crosby never got to see the reaction to the duet. Between the recording and the first broadcast of the special on November 30, 1977, Crosby had died on October 14.
Finally, the Bowie-Crosby version is so iconic and well-loved, that when Will Ferrell (as David Bowie) and John C. Reilly (as Bing Crosby) tackled a reenactment for Funny or Die, they kept the humor subtle and played much of the segment straight. Thus, they created a humorous segment that also is a tribute to the classic duet, to the holiday, and to the meaning of Katherine Kennicott Davis’s song. Pa rum a-pum pum pum.
Perhaps the song and TV special will forever carry a melancholy aura of Christmas. With a song written during a time World War II was spreading, and with an American TV special that first aired the year Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were killed, our memories of the song and TV show will always tie it to a dark time. Yet, the song has always also provided some hope. Recognizing some of the challenges of faith and the depression many face at Christmas time, the song and special allow a child, and a smile, to give us a simple gift.
Happy holidays! What is your favorite version of “The Little Drummer Boy”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Last night on NBC’s The Voice, the show opened with the contestants backing up the coaches — Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, CeeLo Green and Christina Aguilera — singing Leonard Cohen‘s “Hallelujah” in a tribute to those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The coaches, contestants, host Carson Daily, and Social Media Correspondent Christina Milian held up signs with the names of the 26 children and adults killed at the school as well as a card for Nancy Lanza, the mother of the mentally ill shooter (although it appears they opted not to hold up a card for the young Adam Lanza who also killed himself).
I am usually not a fan of the way people pull out “Hallelujah” as a tribute to those who have died. For example, I have seen awards shows use the famous Jeff Buckley recording to accompany a video of artists who passed away. The beautiful song is often overused, and despite the title and biblical references in the lyrics, the meaning of the song is not really as religious as many think, touching on love, obsession, and sex. Leonard Cohen has stated that the song “explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist, and all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have equal value.”
That said, The Voice rendition and their selection of which verses to sing was appropriate and one of the few times the song has been used so effectively in tribute. So as much as I don’t want to admit it, it is a beautiful tribute on what has become one of my favorite music competition shows. Check it out.
Day after day another Momma’s crying, She’s lost her precious child
And there are the heartbreaking stories about all the kids and adults killed in the shooting as the funerals begin. I keep thinking how many of those families go home every night to a Christmas tree with wrapped presents that no longer have a recipient. And then I cannot take any more and I turn off the TV for awhile.
But we also realize that we have been here before, and not only do I not have any answers, nobody else does either.
Did that voice inside you say I’ve seen this all before? It’s like Deja Vu all over again.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty released “DeJa Vu (All Over Again)” as a title track on his album of the same name in 2004, apparently taking the title from the great baseball philosopher Yogi Berra. The song was written to point out similarities between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war, and it stands as one of Fogerty’s best songs in recent years.
Unfortunately, the song’s lyrics fit more than just the war, including the recent tragedy.
Maybe fake Morgan Freeman was right that we should just turn off the news for a little while, perhaps while we crank up the music.
Jesus loved me this I know,
album, and below he performs the song in concert.
