The Holiday Fest 2024

To continue the Fest, this is a Christmas recording that blends two worlds -- totally unknown, yet hugely-well-known and wonderful.  How can that be, you ask??!  I'll explain.

The main song here is from the musical, Here's Love, by Meredith Willson, who of course wrote The Music Man.  It's based on the classic film, Miracle on 34th Street.  The show wasn't terribly successful, though didn't flop and had a respectable run of 334 performances -- just under a year -- in 1964.  The score is inconsistent, but half of it is quite wonderful.  (I've actually tried, half-heartedly, I must admit, to get a TV production of it made for several years.  I think it would be a terrific Christmas special.  Hey, who knows, maybe one year NBC will do it live...)

The song is called "Pine Cones and Holly Berries," sung by Laurence Naismith who plays Kris Kringle. It's very charming and a lovely Christmas holiday song, though is pretty much unknown.

Now, as you may recall, Meredith Willson likes counterpoint.  He used it a great deal, to much good effect in The Music Man, most notably with "Lida Rose" sung counter to "Will I Ever Tell You?", but also famously with "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a Little," sung in counterpoint with an already-existing song, "Goodnight, Ladies."

Well, he used the technique again in Here's Love.  He created "Pine Cones and Holly Berries" to be sung counter to an already-existing, very famous Christmas song -- one which (I am sure most people will be shocked to learn) he himself wrote.  When I say it's very famous and completely well-known -- trust me on this.  It's very famous. And yes, it's actually written by, of all people, Meredith Willson.  I won't tell you want it is, but let you have the fun of discovering it when it comes in halfway through.  (Though if you've read this pages during past Holiday Music Fests, you likely know it by now...)

The counterpoint, very famous song is performed here by Janis Paige and -- are you ready? -- Fred Gwynne!   Though he hated being typecast in his famous TV role, since it almost ruined his career (I worked with him on the movie, Pet Sematary, and we briefly talked about it), I feel compelled to identify him in this context for the sheer incongruity of it, as yes, 'Herman Munster,' whose TV series came along soon thereafter.  He comes in the song here most-clearly at the 1:14 mark, singing (and really well) "Christmas, Christmas. Christmas Day.  Bells ring, and hearts sing, every day..."

So, here then is a lovely, sweet Christmas song you don't know, sung in counterpoint to an extremely famous one you absolutely do, both by Meredith Willson.

​As a bonus, we'll throw in a couple of other good -- and lesser-known -- Christmas songs from the show.  This first (with video from a community production) is during the courtroom scene and W.H. Macy is called to the stand where he has to say under oath whether he believes that there is actually a Santa Claus.
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And we'll conclude things with an absolutely lovely song that the lawyer (the fellow who ends up defending Kris at the end, played by Craig Stevens) sings to the daughter of his neighbor, the cynic who hired Kris but sees it all as just business (played by the aforementioned Janis Paige). The young daughter has picked up much of her mother's cynicism, but their neighbor Fred slowly starts to bring some holiday cheer into the girl's life.
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