Winter Wonderland by Doris Day--Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2024-25

 

                                                            Winter Wonderland by Doris Day.

This is a good time to share one of those holiday playlist songs that really have nothing to do with Christmas or any other seasonal fest.  Among the most common are winter or snow songs--think Frosty the Snowman for kids, the seduction or date rape song (take your pick) Baby It's Cold Outside, Snow from the movie White Christmas, My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music, and of course Jingle Bells.  But the most popular of these is Winter Wonderland.

Winter Wonderland was written by composer Felix Bernard (left) and consumptive lyricist Richard B.Smith.

The song was written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard B. Smith.  Since its original RCA recording by Richard Himber and his Hotel Ritz-Carlton Orchestra, it has been covered by over 200 different artists including Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, Amy Grant, Michael Buble, The Eurytmics, and Radiohead.

 Smith's lyrics were reportedly inspired by memories of his hometown Honesdale, Pennsylvania Central Park where children played in the snow but were written while he was being treated for tuberculosis in the West Mountain Sanitarium in Scranton. 
 

Children played in Central Park in , Honesdale, Pennsylvania across the street from Richard B. Smith's boyhood home town.

Among the most notable covers by were by Johnny Mercer in 1945 and Perry Como the same year which was in the top ten songs in retail sales.

The song was featured in Billie Burkes's unsucesful revival of her late husband's Flo Ziegfeld's Follies.

Sinatra's version was notable for changing the lyrics.  Despite earlier success of the song, Sinatra was warned the powerful Protestant clergy were prepared to demand to demand that radio stations ban the song because of the line "in the meadow we will build a snowman/We'll pretend that he is Parson Brown/He'll say "are you married?/We'll say no man/But you can do the job when you're in town."  The preachers were alarmed that the words implied hanky-panky by the unmarried couple.  Old Blue Eyes changed he words to the nonsensical "In the meadow we will build a snowman/And pretend that he's a circus clown/We''ll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman/Until the other kiddies knock him down."

Some later covers used Sinatra's version; while others stood by the original and some even used both.   

One of several Doris Day Christmas albums, re-issues, and compilations.

Today we share a version by former big band singer turned movie star Doris Day.  The video clips accompanying her voice are from two popular MGM movie nostalgia fests she made opposite Gordon McCrea--On Moonlight Bay  in 1951 and By the Light of the Silvery Moon in 1953.