Lady Gaga’s performance of Smile
the other night on the One World:
Together At HomeTV special reminded
me of just how apt the song is to
our days of Coronavirus angst.I encourage you to find it on YouTube.But today we are listening to Nat King Cole’s 1954 hit.
Charlie Chaplain as the Little Tramp and Paulette Godard as the Gamin in Modern Times.
Smileis based on an instrumental theme used in the soundtrack for Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 movie Modern Times. Chaplin’s own
composition was the inspired by Puccini’sopera Tosca.It reflected the bitter sweet story of the Little Tramp’s love for the urchin girl called the Gamin played by his real life wife
Paulette Godard.
John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added the lyrics and title in 1954 based on lines and themes from the film. Nat King Cole’s recording went to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100chart and #2 on the UK
Singles Chart.Other memorable
recordings or performances of the song were made by Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland on The Ed Sullivan Showin 1963, Barbra Steisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Natalie Cole, and Michael Jackson.
Well it’s the eve of Christmas Eve and time to turn to traditional carols.Today we feature one of the oldest American carols whose simple melody and humble reverence made it a Sunday school pageant and parlor piano sing-a-long favorite.The text was written by Phillips Brooks the rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia in 1868 and hastily set to the music Americans still sing today by his organistLewis Redner.
Christian pilgrims enter Bethlehem circa 1890. Things were not much change there since Philips Brooks visited in 1865
Brooks was inspired by the memory of an 1865 pilgrimage to the Holy Land which included a visit to the Arab village of Bethlehem which he imagined to be virtually unchanged since Biblical times.Shortly before Christmas he was moved to write a poem about the village and took it to Redner to be set to music for a Sunday school program just days ahead.After considering setting the poem to an existing hymn tune, a common practice, he was in a near panic on Friday night before the program until he claimed to have been whispered to by an angel in his sleep.He got up, jotted down a simple melody and created harmonies for the choir the evening before the service.
Philip Brooks in his olater days as Episcopal Bishop of Boston.
Neither Brooks nor Redner expected the song to be remembered past its first performance.But Philadelphia bookstore owner Richard McCauley heard it, liked it, and printed it as a leaflet for sale.From Redner that recalled that “Rev. Dr. Huntington, rector of All Saints. Church, Worcester, Mass., asked permission to print it in his Sunday-school hymn and tune book, called The Church Porch.”Huntington also named the music St. Louis for some reason and it is still identified by that name in American hymnals.
By the turn of the 20th CenturyO Little Town of Bethlehem was one of the most popular carols in the United States.It also made its way to Britain thanks to its inclusion in Episcopal hymnals but in 1906 it was set to a different melody known as Forest Green by Ralph Vaughan Williams from an English folk ballad called The Ploughboy's Dream which he had collected from a Mr. Garman of Forest Green near Ockley, Surrey that tune is now most commonly used in Britain and Commonwealth Countries and has even supplanted the original in some U.S. Episcopal churches.Later the poem was attached to sill other songs.
Nat King Cole's version first appeared on this 1960 album which was so succeful that it was re-issued under a different title in 1963. It has also been included on numerous compilations albums issued since then.
But the original is still treasured and sung by Americans.It has been recorded many times notably by Bing Crosby, Elvis Pressley, and Sarah McLachlan.But we have a soft spot for the version by Nat King Cole on his 1960 LP The Magic of Christmas and on his 1963 re-issue retitled The Christmas Song.
