What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? —Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival

                                                        What Are You Doing New Year's Eve by the Orioles.

Back in the day everyone who was not a misanthrope or a shut-in went out on New Year’s Eve.  The toffs wore their white ties and tails and elegant evening gowns and furs to don paper hats and dance the night way to orchestras in sprawling Art Deco ballrooms.  At least that is what all of the old movies taught the rest of the Depression and war weary populous.  But those average Joes and Jills also went out and celebrated with their own funny hats and noise makers in urban ballrooms, lodge halls, piano bars, and neighborhood saloons.  And it was not just attractive young people.  Period photographs reveal that revelers include many middle aged and older couples.

Celebrating in the U.K. in the 1930s--a night to forget the Depression.

Drunk driving enforcement and cozy stay-at-home TV extravaganzas have been eating away at New Year’s Eve revelry for years.  Last year the Coronavirus precautions left the crystal ball to drop in an empty Times Square and in most places clubs and nightspots are shuttered or open to extremely limited capacity.  This year a raging resurgence of the Omicron variant is scaring many folks away from re-scheduled public hoopla and causing some clubs and venues to shut down either as a precaution or because performers and staff have been infected. Dancing and smooching strangers at midnight will be discouraged in all but the kamikaze you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do-libtard states.

New Year's Eve--the romantic dream.

But way back when for those who were not married or already romantically involved the question what are you doing New Year’s Eve? was of vital importance.  Nobody wanted to be alone on New Year’s and everyone wanted someone to kiss at the stroke of midnight.  That is what songwriter Frank Loesser had in mind in 1947 when he made the question into a song—What are You Doing New Year’s Eve. Margaret Whiting, barely out of her teens recorded it for Capitol Records that year without much note taken of it.   

Although it was performed on radio shows that often featured the popular composer’s work, it didn’t become a real hit until 1949 when the early doo-wop group The Orioles hit #9 on Billboard’s Rhythm & Blues chart. 

Despite that success, the song did not become an instant standard or holiday favorite.  In fact, it languished seldom recorded until Nancy Wilson hit #17 on Billboard’s Christmas Singles chart in 1965.  Two years later the same recording returned to the Holiday Chart.  Wilson’s silky and sexy, take helped make the song a something of a jazz standard sung by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.

New Year's revelry for ordinary folks--somewhere in a lodge hall, bar back room, or neighborhood venue.

But the song still didn’t register as a pop standard until the new century and streaming video from YouTube made it go viral.  In 2011 an utterly charming impromptu duet with Zooey Deschanel and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt made a splash ultimately attracting more than 20 million hits.   And in 2017 Scott Bradlee’s Post Modern Juke Box covered the song featuring vocalists Rayvon Owen and Olivia Kuper Harris and has registered more than a million views.   

Many consider the Orioles from Baltimore the first successful doo-wop recording artists and the first vocal group of post-War Rhythm & Blues.  Four voices in harmony accompanied only by guitar and up right bass.

But today we are featuring the earliest recording of Loesser’s song by the original hit-makers.  The Orioles are generally acknowledged as post-World War II R&B’s first vocal group. Baltimore natives, they blended rhythm with group harmonies and named themselves after Maryland’s state bird.  Members included lead tenor Sonny Til, high tenor Alexander Sharp, baritone George Nelson, bass vocals and standup bass player Johnny Reed, and guitarist Tommy Gaither.

2019 Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival—Deck the Halls

Deck the Halls.

Quiz—What popular British Christmas favorite is actually a Welsh New Year’s carol in disguise?  Hint—it is one of the festive street caroling songs and also celebrates a pagan-ish Yule without any mention of Christmas or the Christ Child.  Answer—Deck the Halls!

Blind Welsh Harpist John Parry first noted the melody for Nos Galan in a 1741 manuscript.

The melody for the song comes from a Welsh winter or New Year’s carol probably dating to the 17th Century or earlier and first found in manuscript by Welsh harpist John Parry as Nos Galan (New Year’s Eve), in 1741 and published in Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards by Edward Jones in 1784.

The English words to Nos Galan began as follows:

Oh! how soft my fair one’s bosom,

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

Oh! how sweet the grove in blossom,

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

Oh! how blessed are the blisses,

[instrumental flourish]

Words of love, and mutual kisses,

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

That titillating lyric was representative of the revelry associated with New Year’s.  Additional Welsh lyrics added later and translated literally without attempt to rhyme included reference to drinking:

            The best pleasure on new year’s eve,

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

Is house and fire and a pleasant family,

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

A pure heart and brown ale,

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

A gentle song and the voice of the harp

fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la.

Scottish poet and musician Thomas Oliphant first penned the English language Deck the Hall.

The English lyrics were written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant and first appeared in 1862, in Volume 2 of Welsh Melodies, a set of four volumes by John Thomas, and named Deck the Hall.  Note the singular form which referred to the common custom in Celtic societies like Wales, Scotland, and Brittany in France of decorating homes for New Year’s visiting and parties. 

Thomas’s collection included Welsh words by John Jones (Talhaiarn) which were once regarded as the source for Oliphant.  It was actually the other way around—Jones translated Oliphant’s version into Welsh. 

Oliphant’s song continued reference to drinking in the first verse and mentioned Christmas.  FYI—troul in the first verse means a round or lively folk song.

            Deck the hall with boughs of holly,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

'Tis the season to be jolly,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Troul the ancient Christmas carol,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

See the flowing bowl before us,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Strike the harp and join the chorus.

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Follow me in merry measure,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

While I sing of beauty's treasure,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Fast away the old year passes,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses!

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Laughing, quaffing all together,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Heedless of the wind and weather,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

An American version of the lyrics published in the Pennsylvania School Journal in 1877 removed references to drinking replacing “Fill the meadcup…” with “Don we now our gay apparel”, “See the flowing bowl…” with “See the blazing Yule before Us”, and “Laughing, quaffing all together” with “Sing we joyous all together.”  It also replaced “ancient Christmas carol” with “ancient Yuletide carol.”  These are the lyrics usually sung in the United States.

The title was not pluralized to Deck the Halls until 1892.

The song was perfect for street caroling, parlor sing-alongs, and in public school holiday programs which could be skittish about religious carols.  It is also popular with neo pagans who sometimes seem to believe that the 19th Century English words are much more ancient and perhaps even pre-Christian.

Deck the Halls has been recorded many times.  Nat King Cole had a charted hit with his version and it launched the jazz/syntho-pop/New Age instrumentalists Mannheim Steamroller as an annual Holiday Season touring phenomenon in 1984.

Today’s version is a sing-a-long with lyrics from the album and YouTube channel Christmas Songs and Carols.